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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419161">Brought Me to You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mochinsane/pseuds/Mochinsane'>Mochinsane</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, Ballet Dancer Katsuki Yuuri, Coach Katsuki Yuuri, Grand Prix Final Banquet, ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating, Katsuki Yuuri Speaks Russian, Katsuki Yuuri in Russia, M/M, Oblivious Katsuki Yuuri, Phichit Chulanont Is a Good Friend, Pining Victor Nikiforov, Quad Axel (Figure Skating), Quad Jumps (Figure Skating), Season-Ending Injury, Skater Victor Nikiforov, Slow To Update, Vicchan Lives, World Figure Skating Championships, Yuri Plisetsky Is a Katsuki Yuuri Fan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:26:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>33,050</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419161</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mochinsane/pseuds/Mochinsane</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He skates, joy filling him. He readies himself for the last jump, his signature triple axel. Gliding forward, toe pick digging in, rotates three and a half times. He already knows he’s going to land it. He smiles as his blade connects back to the ice. It was perfect. He bends his knees further to ready himself for his spins. With only the spins left in the program, nothing could go wrong now. </p>
<p>Except something could go wrong.</p>
<p>
  <em>Terribly wrong.</em>
</p>
<p>----</p>
<p>Yuuri Katsuki was on top of his game, coming closer and closer each time to snatching the gold from the living legend. But then, he has an accident, causing him to give up skating. He pursues coaching, and gets hired to be a coach to assist Yakov Feltsman in Russia while he works on his health. </p>
<p>with every twist and turn in his life, through every friendship and bonds, his life in Japan, The states, and Russia, The ice. </p>
<p>all Yuuri is asking is</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>What the fuck is going on?</em></p>
<p>-----</p>
<p>on a totally unrelated note, i made a tumblr for updates on this and it's also my personal brain rot area now.<br/><a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mochinsane">Yeehaw, sue me</a></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>434</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Past, present, future.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do not own Yuri!!! on Ice, but I do own the plot of this story. </p>
<p>This fic has slow updates, only about 2 updates per month, same with the other fic i have. </p>
<p>This story does not have a specific time frame, but i will try to keep it as technically accurate as possible.</p>
<p>some things in this story may not add up to what might happen in actual events and competitions.</p>
<p>English is not my first language, so forgive me if my grammar and spelling may be off</p>
<p>Thank you, and enjoy this fic!!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Three years ago.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Mr. Katsuki, you won silver at last year’s World Championships behind Viktor Nikiforov and Four Continents behind Cao Bin. The Grand Prix Final last year and this year by only a fraction of a point behind Viktor Nikiforov, you also won gold at Skate America and NHK trophy qualifiers and this year’s Four Continents. Tell us, do you plan on taking the gold this time? What’re your plans for the next season?” A young Japanese reporter eagerly hold out his microphone in front of 20-year-old Yuuri Katsuki, Japan’s Rising Star. The young skater blushes and looks at is coach, Celestino, almost in silent question. He timidly smiles at his coach before giving the same smile to the younger reporter.</p>
<p>“I plan on doing my best, and maybe if I’m good enough, win a medal or even gold. For next season, I plan on starting the season fresh with new programs. but let’s not focus on that, let’s focus on what’s happening now, right?” Yuuri smiles, directing his gaze to between the reporter’s forehead. He thumbs at the water bottle in his hand anxiously, looking over to the arena entrance.</p>
<p>There he was. In his third world championships as a senior. Yuuri has been on one hell of a ride, having a fantastic senior debut when we transitioned when he was eighteen. Winning multiple medals, making his country, his family <em>proud.</em> He stood on the podium with his long-time idol, Viktor Nikiforov. Maybe, if he did well, he’d get the courage to talk to him.</p>
<p>“You’re making your country really proud. top in Japan at such a young age since your junior days. Would you like to like to say something to your supporters back at your home country?” The Japanese skater turns his attention towards the camera, smiling. “Everyone, thank you for supporting me through the ups and downs of my career so far. I wouldn’t be here without your endless support and kind encouragement. I hope you will continue to support me with my career. I hope that I can perform my best for this Worlds and the other competitions to come. I am proud to be representing my home country and its people, thank you so much.” Yuuri bows, smiling at the camera and forming a V shape with his forefinger and ring finger.</p>
<p>The Italian man clears his throat, placing a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and jerks his hear twice towards the doors. Yuuri understood, nodding before bowing at the reporter. “I’m sorry, Morooka-san. I have to go now.” The reporter bows back to the skater, taking his hands in a handshake. “Thank you for having this interview with us, Katsuki-senshu. All of Japan is right behind you.” Yuuri smiles once more before walking over to his coach.</p>
<p>The older man raises his eyebrows at his skater’s shallow breaths, placing a hand on his shoulder in concern. Yuuri takes a few more breaths before looking up at the coach, smiling in reassurance. The older man lets go of him, walking in comfortable silence towards the entrance.</p>
<p>It was a tradition of some sort. A routine. The two only communicated through their eyes and body language rather than words, it helps Yuuri’s nerves. Every now and then Yuuri gets anxious out of his mind that he has to take a pill, but today didn’t seem like one of those days.</p>
<p>It was odd, but welcomed. Yuuri was normally a mess when he places high in the short program, but Yuuri’s nerves seem to be at bay. He was calm and determined to prove himself to the world. He was ready.</p>
<p>He zips his team jacket further up, entering the arena and walking up to the rink side. He clutches at his jacket cuffs, bouncing on the rubber mat. He was in the last group of skaters to perform, the second to last all in all. </p>
<p>Celestino watches him with observing eyes. He couldn’t help but feel <em>off</em>. Yuuri was different, the atmosphere was different, something was just <em>different.</em></p>
<p>The Italian coach snaps out of his daze when the Yuuri goes to the line of skaters getting ready for the six minute warm up. He shakes the feeling before following the skater. Just as Yuuri exchanges pleasantries with the other skaters and having a brief conversation with his senior, Oda, Celestino gives Yuuri his pre-warm up lecture.</p>
<p>“None of your major jumps, <em>especially</em> the one you’ve been obsessing to ratify. Do it in the competition. Stick to your doubles, got it? Just do some laps and run through some of your steps, lower the difficulty a bit, yeah?” Yuuri nods, bouncing on his blades to calm himself down. He removes his guards as they announce their group, shoving them towards Celestino before getting on the white ice.</p>
<p>A pair of eyes watch the entire interaction from behind the Japanese skater. He raises an eyebrow, bright blue eyes dancing in curiosity.</p>
<p>They each get announced, Yuuri bowing to the audience when it was his turn.</p>
<p>He blows through the warm-up, being mindful of his surroundings to make sure he doesn’t collide with any of the other skaters. He does his warm up jumps, a few double toes, loops, and an axel. Settling with a gradually lowered in difficulty step sequence. As the time reaches to a minute left, Yuuri gets an idea, one that contradicts what his coach says.</p>
<p>He gains speed and launches himself into a perfect triple Lutz, no wobble, no mistakes. He looks over at his coach who displayed a rather displeased look. Yuuri feels his lips tug into a small smile, satisfied with the jump and his coach’s expression. Yuuri didn’t <em>technically</em> break all his rules, except for doing a triple. He didn’t do <em>the</em> jump. The jump the wanted to be the first to be able to do.</p>
<p>He skates off, but feels something <em>loosen</em>. Yuuri looks down at his boot, but doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He shrugs at the feeling, figuring it was just his sock shifting. He uses the remainder of the warm up doing single-double combinations as tanos and rippons.</p>
<p>They were soon called off the ice to make way for the first skater of the group, Cao Bin. Yuuri takes his blade guards from his coach, snapping them on before taking the water bottle too. The older man eyes him, narrowing his eyes. Yuuri looks over, tilting his head and removing the bottle from his lips. “What?” The coach sighs, crossing his arms across his chest. “Didn’t I say to only do doubles? Don’t think I didn’t see that look on your face you make when something’s wrong.” Yuuri shrugs, smiling at Seojun Lim as he passes by. “I’m sure It’s nothing. I’ll readjust my boot in the athlete’s room.”</p>
<p>Celestino sighs, giving in. He was never really able to get the skater to listen. The skater was stubborn and competitive, trying over and <em>over</em> again until he gets it right. But it was okay, it was one of the things Celestino liked about Yuuri when he picked him up to be his skater. A model student, one that stands their ground but listens when suggestions come, flexible to many things.</p>
<p>His stubbornness is what led him here, at the world championships as one of the skaters favored to win. This might me his year, after all, he is about to make history in his skate.</p>
<p>Yuuri starts to walk to the athlete’s area, removing his boots and replacing them with his shoes as his hands start to shake as the nerves start to kick in. He takes his phone and earphones out of his jacket pocket, placing them into his ears securely. He opens his warm up playlist and plays the piece he was skating to, Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor, op. 16 in Allegro Molto Moderato. </p>
<p>He plays out his program in his mind, visualizing every aspect as he moves his body on autopilot. He marks his jumps, dancing along to his steps.</p>
<p>No matter how much Yuuri loved skating, he would always go back to his roots as a dancer. A barre and a mirror in a studio as much as a home as the cold, unforgiving, but beautiful ice. He puts the piece on replay, wanting to embed every turn, leap, move into his body.</p>
<p>As it replays again, he readies himself to jump. He launches himself in the air, spinning 2.5 times before coming down, holding out both arms to balance himself. He repeats it, one rotation jump, two rotation jump, three rotation jump, four—</p>
<p>He feels a hand on his shoulder, his coach shaking his head at him as he readies himself for a quadruple jump. No, it wasn’t the time for that. Yuuri knows, he knows that even with his stamina doing all these jumps and steps would only exhaust him before his performance. Yuuri nods, letting a deep breath escape from him. He goes over to the chairs by his mat, pulling a towel from his bag to wipe his sweat.</p>
<p>He needs to get ready, straighten out his costume, slick his hair back, put concealer under his eyes to mask the evidence of his lack of sleep, lace up his boots. The man stretches out one last time, holding his leg in Développé to accommodate his Y-spiral before pulling it above his head in a needle, making sure his les were straight and his back arched.</p>
<p>Yuuri comes out of the pose, shaking his legs to lessen the stress. He takes his pouch that contained his lip balm, concealer, and hair gel and heads out of the room to prepare himself in the comfort room. The piece was still on loop, distracting Yuuri from the cameras and the competition. He didn’t need to hear them. He didn’t want to hear them.</p>
<p>
  <em>Katsuki Yuuri of Japan, twenty years old. Finally, a competitor that can dethrone the reigning king of figure skating. Blah blah blah.</em>
</p>
<p>Yuuri didn’t need to hear that. He didn’t want the pressure. He just wanted to prove himself, he just wanted to be proud of himself.</p>
<p>He slips into the bathroom, locking the door to keep the prying reporters away. The Japanese skater grips the edge of the sink, heaving deep breaths to calm himself. It was only a few more minutes until his turn, he needed to pull himself together. He pools water into his hands, collecting as much as he can, splashing the cold liquid on his face.</p>
<p>“Come on, you can do it. You have to do it.” He slaps his cheeks, pressing his hands flush against his face. He exhales, grabbing the pouch. He adds gel onto his fingers, spreading it across his fingers. He combs the bangs away from his forehead, pulling on the tissue paper to wipe the droplets of water on his face. Dotting the concealer just below his eyes, blending it with the pad of his ring finger. Lip balm spread on his lips. A routine he’s come to memorize.</p>
<p>Yuuri leans on the ceramic sink, looking himself over in the mirror one last time before he exits the room. He shoves his hands in his pockets, trying to ignore everything around him. Everything was in slow motion, blurry, unfocused.</p>
<p>The door to the athlete’s area opens suddenly, a newly freshened up Yuuri Katsuki enters the room. There were only 3 skaters in the room. Cao Bin, the first skater. Yuuri, and Viktor who was scheduled to skate last. Chris was no longer in the room with them, meaning Oda was performing now. Yuuri walks over to where his coach sat with his boots by his feet. Celestino pats down on the seat beside him, gesturing Yuuri to put on his skates.</p>
<p>He ties his skates tightly, making sure his sock was well adjusted and accommodated his foot well. It still felt a bit different, but Yuuri deemed it alright, he’ll check on it after the competition. He was sure it was a small thing, he probably needed new boots.</p>
<p>A man comes in, an ISU official. He says something to Yuuri, but Yuuri couldn’t hear a thing, earphones still blocking the sounds of the world outside his mind. They probably told him to stand by, Oda’s routine must be coming to an end. Right, it was time.</p>
<p>Yuuri bows at the official as he walks past him, chocolate eyes catching ocean blue framed by pristine silver for a millisecond before Yuuri was out the door. His mind must be playing tricks on him, Viktor Nikiforov was not watching him, He probably didn’t even regard Yuuri as more than the Japanese kid who’s lucky enough to land himself into international competitions, winning medals on a row of flukes.</p>
<p>Never mind, this wasn’t what Yuuri needed right now. After all, isn’t that why he was here in the first place? To prove himself to the world that he can skate on the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov, to prove it to himself. It was now or never, he was at the peak of his career, no better time than now. At the World Figure Skating Championships, don’t you think?</p>
<p>Yuuri entered the arena with his coach following close behind him, shutters of flashes following his wake. He balls his hands on his side, ignoring the blinding lights of the camera flashes as he walks by. Christophe was in the middle of his skate, just less than 5 minutes until Yuuri has to perform. He draws out a shaky breath, cold shaky hands Reaching for the zipper on his team jacket. Pulling it down, Shrugging the weight of it off his shoulders. The familiar cold air wraps around him through the fabric of his blue and black costume.</p>
<p>Cheers erupts, Yuuri gulps eyes darting to the heaving figure on the ice. Chris was done. It was his turn.</p>
<p>Yuuri runs a hand through his gelled hair, making more strands escape to his forehead. He hands His coach his jacket, silently walking closer to the entrance. He smiles at Chris as he exits the ice, blushing when the man winked at him. A tradition they’ve been doing since juniors. The smile and wink at the entrance before the free skate.</p>
<p>Yuuri removes his white and red blade guards, handing them over at the offered hand of his coach. As he slid onto the ice, it was as if a switch was flipped. Yuuri had this aura of extreme focus around him, daring anyone but his coach to go near him. He became untouchable.</p>
<p>Gliding over to the boards where his coach stood on the other side, he stabs the ice with his toe pick to ground himself. The Italian man looks over the skater’s figure, eyes studying and searching for anything unusual. He narrows his eyes, hand reaching over to straighten a wrinkle on the costume top. He nods firmly, placing his hands flat on the board as he prepares himself to speak.</p>
<p>“Remember, mind your steps, mind your jumps. If something doesn’t feel right on a jump, just downgrade its difficulty than have it pop or have you fall. Tighten your jumps, make sure your center is, well, centered. Aim for a level 4 step sequence, you’re known for that. Just skate. Bare your soul on the ice, that’s what you’re the best at.”</p>
<p>Yuuri absent mindedly nods, eyes glued towards the blinding white of the ice. It was now or never, he can’t fail. But what if he falls? what if he pops his jumps? what if his performance wasn’t enough? What if he doesn’t score enough to make the podium? What if-</p>
<p>A hand secures itself on his shoulder, making him look up to look at concerned but determined eyes. Celestino urges the skater to breath. In, out, in, out. Yuuri exhales, smiling at the older man, eyes silently thanking him. “Skate for your family, Yuuri. Skate for your friends. But remember to skate for yourself. Now go out there and show them who Yuuri Katsuki is.” Yuuri smiles, nodding his head firmly.</p>
<p>“Now on the ice. Representing Japan, Yuuri Katsuki. Skating to Piano concerto in a minor, op. 16, allegro molto moderato by Edvard Grieg.” Yuuri takes a lap on the ice, waving customarily at the audience and bowing at the judges, skating to the center as the loud cheers starts to quiet. He touches his thumbs with each of his other fingers, his pre-skate routine. Positioning himself into his opening pose, taking a deep breath, counting 1, 2 ,3—</p>
<p>The music starts, drowning out every one of his senses. He focuses on the music, the movement, what was in his adventure.</p>
<p>He thinks about his family, his friends, his home. If he did well in this championships he would go home, visit after 2 years of not seeing his family in person. See his nieces that he hasn’t seen or held since they were first born. Skate with Yuuko and Takeshi until they were lying on the ice, exhausted after a gruesome session just like they did when they were kids. Dance the night away with Minako in the old, but beautiful ballet studio.</p>
<p> He needed to make the proud before he came home, to repay his parents for all the sacrifices they made for his career, to repay Yuuko and his family for the coaching they offered him when his family couldn’t afford one, to repay Minako for all the lessons she gave him during afterhours. He was indebted to these people, he wanted to show them what he had accomplished with their endless amount of support and love.</p>
<p>He enters into his flying sit spin combination, keeping his center centered. His first jumping pass is next, a triple Lutz triple toe loop combination. He glides back, foot tilting to the back outside edge of his blade, digging the toe pick into the ice, spinning three times, arms raised, landing on the opposite foot on the blade’s back outside edge, then launches himself into a triple toe loop. He lands, no wobble, already skating to his next move. A quad toe was next. Yuuri had planned to put three quads in his program, one in the first half, the rest in the second since it had a higher difficulty. But that was just what was on paper. Three quads. No, he was going to do four.</p>
<p>He jumps, four rotations, both arms above his head, lands it. He pushes into his step sequence, letting his emotions take over.</p>
<p>Triple Axel, single loop, triple Salchow, arm raised. Spin combination, choreographic sequence.</p>
<p>He flies through the program, letting the muscle memory take over.</p>
<p>Quadruple Salchow, a bit wobbly on the landing.</p>
<p>Triple loop, double toe, arms raised.</p>
<p>Y- spiral.</p>
<p>The program was coming to an end, towards the part where he worked so hard for the past year. He put his everything into this jump, blood, sweat, tears, his entire soul. He needed to land it. Be the first to land it in competition.</p>
<p>He takes a breath as he glides backwards, back outside edge, toe pick digging in. 1 rotation, 2 rotations, 3 rotations.</p>
<p>Four rotations, arms raised above his head, lands. No wobble.</p>
<p>He smiles to himself, almost laughing. The crowd starts to scream.</p>
<p>He did it.</p>
<p>He ratified the first Quadruple Lutz in competition.</p>
<p>He skates, joy filling him. He readies himself for the last jump, his signature triple axel. Gliding forward, toe pick digging in, rotates three and a half times. He already knows he’s going to land it. He smiles as his blade makes connects back to the ice. It was perfect. He bends his knees further to ready himself for his spins. With only the spins left in the program, nothing could go wrong now.</p>
<p>Except something could go wrong.</p>
<p>Terribly wrong.</p>
<p>Something <em>snaps</em>. The pressure form the jump snapping the laces, loosening so fast Yuuri could barely react. His knee drops onto the solid ice, the boot’s tongue giving out under Yuuri’s weight. He cries out in pain, hands immediately going to protect is head. The music stops, the sounds of gasps and screams for the paramedics echoing across the room.</p>
<p>He lays there, on the cold surface with tears of pain running down the sides of his face. The shooting pain from his knee distracting him from the padding of the paramedics carefully running towards him. “Mr. Katsuki, can you hear us?” Yuuri grunts, placing his forearm on his eyes. “Where is the pain?” The other paramedic asks, helping Yuuri sit up. “left knee.” Yuuri briefly answers, the pain too much for him to handle. “We’re going to put you on a stretcher, Mr. Katsuki. Is that okay with you?”</p>
<p>Yuuri shakes his head, pushing himself off the ice, wincing as he added pressure to his leg. “Mr. Katsuki, I really don’t think—“ Yuuri raises a hand, stopping the paramedic to stop talking. “I’m fine, just. Just help he get to the exit. Please.” Yuuri didn’t want to make a scene. The worst happened, his lace snapped, he injured himself, he probably got himself disqualified.</p>
<p>He limped towards the exit, gliding on his good leg. He collapses into Celestino, tears running down his cheeks again as he repeats a phrase like a mantra. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” Yuuri sobs into the coaches’ jacket, the Italian man rubbing his back. “shhh, it’s okay. Accidents happen, let’s get you checked out and wait for the ISU’s decision to either keep your program or disqualify you from the free skate.” Yuuri nods numbly. it was over.</p>
<p>He sits on the chair, hissing as he hits his knee accidentally. A woman come up to him and smiles, a checkboard in her arms. “Hello Mr. Katsuki, my name is Dr. Ainsley, I’m the doctor in standby here for the world championships.”  Yuuri bows his head respectfully.</p>
<p>“Follow my finger with your eyes.” She holds he index finger in front of Yuuri’s eyes, moving it sfrom left to right. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, okay?” Once the woman received Yuuri’s permission to come closer into his space, she takes a chair and sets it in front of Yuuri. “What’s your name?” Yuuri looks up, eyes confused. Hadn’t the woman just called him by his name a minute ago?</p>
<p>“Katsuki Yuuri.”</p>
<p>“age?”</p>
<p>“twenty”</p>
<p>“date of birth?”</p>
<p>“November 29”</p>
<p>The woman pauses, jotting down on her clipboard.</p>
<p>“Do you know where you are right now?” Yuuri hesitates.</p>
<p>“London World figure skating championships?”</p>
<p>The woman hums, writing again. She smiles at him, kneeling down to examine his legs. “How’re you feeling? Nauseous? Dizzy?” Yuuri shakes his head, lips forming into a thing line. She hums, squeezing his left ankle. “Do you mind?” Dr. Ainsley taps gently on his boot. “No, it’s okay. I’ll untie them.” Yuuri pulls on the laces of his right boot, the tightness on his foot loosening. He winced as he turns to unlace what was left of his left boot’s shoelace. The lace was positively done for. The lace must’ve thinned out from the friction, snapping in the worst possible moment yet.</p>
<p>Yuuri should’ve seen the signs, it felt different since that morning’s warm up. He should’ve known when it loosened, the signs were right in front of him. He could’ve avoided this, he—</p>
<p>“Mr. Katsuki?” A hand on his shoulder snaps him out of his daze, the doctor’s green eyes meeting his. “Pardon?” The woman smiles understandingly, pushing herself off the matted floor. “Tell me if you feel any pain. Any pain at all, no matter how big or small the pain is. Okay?” She takes Yuuri’s right leg and places it on top of the chair she sat on earlier, squeezing the ankle. Yuuri shakes his head no, repeating the process when dr. Ainsley examined the rest of his right leg.</p>
<p>He winces when dr. Ainsley’s hand wraps gently around his ankle. “That hurts?” Yuuri nods, blinking back tears as he tries to straighten his leg. “Where else? Where did you land on the ice?”</p>
<p>“Left knee. It hurts really bad.” His voice croaks. He was in so much pain, he needed to get some air. The woman examines the knee, delicately handling it. “We need to get you to the hospital, get an x-ray. Make sure you haven’t damaged anything major.” The skater’s head snapped towards the woman. “What? No! what about what the ISU says about my free skate? The quad Lutz?”</p>
<p>“That wouldn’t be necessary, Mr. Katsuki.” A man’s voice came from behind him, walking into view. “Mr. Hernandez.” The man, Mr. Hernandez, nods at Yuuri. “How are you doing, Mr. Katsuki?” Yuuri smiles tightly, both hands pointing towards his knee. “I’m holding up.”</p>
<p>“The ISU decided that we should give you a score since the program was on its end with just your combination spin left. Don’t worry, The Lutz was reviewed and completely Ratified. Congratulations Mr. Katsuki.” Yuuri sighs in relief, smiling at the man. “I- Uh- I need to collect my score before going to the hospital.”</p>
<p>“No, no. you go on ahead. Mr. Giacometti has already volunteered to inform you on your scores. The health and wellness of the skaters are the upmost highest priority. Get well soon, Mr. Katsuki.” Yuuri smiles, bowing to the man respectfully. </p>
<p>Celestino pats his back, a small relieved smile gracing his lips. “Come on, let’s get that leg check on.</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <strong>YUURI KATSUKI— INJURED AT THE WORLD FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHPS AFTER RATIFYING THE FIRST EVERY QUADRUPLE LUTZ</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>By: Bella De Croix </strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p>
<p>[Picture of Yuuri Katsuki’s mid-quad Lutz at the London World Championships]</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>London—</strong> Friday evening at the 20xx World Figure Skating Championships, Yuuri Katsuki gave a beautiful, near perfect performance in his free program. Ratifying the first Quadruple Lutz in Figure skating history. But all the glory and joy Katsuki had felt at that moment died down when he fell on his signature triple axel jump with both arms raised.</p>
<p>According to the Katsuki’s team’s and the ISU’s statements, Mr. Katsuki had not been disqualified from the competition for not finishing the program due to a malfunction with his gear. Katsuki’s lace snapped from the pressure of the jump, having him land on his knee.</p>
<p>Katsuki managed to snatch to snatch the silver medal with less than half a point above Giacometti, but had not been able to be at the award ceremony and the skate exhibition. Fourth placer, Nobunari Oda performing in Katsuki’s place.</p>
<p>There is no statement about Mr. Katsuki’s health, but he is being treated now at the Saint Joseph’s hospital. All we can do for now is hope for Mr. Katsuki’s full recovery and swift return to the ice.</p>
<p>Talk with us about the world figure skating championships on twitter <strong>@Thestarofficial</strong></p>
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<p></p><blockquote>
  <p><strong>Kai </strong>@Katsudone · 5m</p>
  <p>I have never felt so many emotions all at once. First I felt absolute joy when Yuuri has a near perfect performance landing all his jumps, got level 4 on all his sequences (though no surprise there really). Then shock and frustration on that fall. That damn lace just had to snap THERE?!</p>
  <p><strong>Yuuyuu </strong>@icetea · 5m</p>
  <p>That really looked like a bad fall. With a hit to the knee that hard? There’s no way that wouldn’t be a major injury. Let’s all pray for a miracle that Yuuri only got a bruise.</p>
  <p><strong>DetroitSk8erz</strong> @Hamstersindetroit · 4m</p>
  <p>So I’ve been following Yuuri’s career (along with the other DSC skaters) since his junior years, and I remember Yuuri having a really bad fall on his hip on an attempted triple axel. Yuuri went through a badly injured hip and came back to the competition stronger than ever. 1/2</p>
  <p><strong>DetroitSk8erz</strong> @Hamstersindetroit · 4m</p>
  <p>Yuuri’s a strong person and he never gives up. While Yuuri takes his time to heal let’s all hope for his speedy recovery and his return, give him all the love and support. YOU CAN GET THROUGH THIS YUURI-CHAN 2/2</p>
  <p><strong>ari </strong>@Skategeek · 3m</p>
  <p>can ya’ll imagine how Giacometti feels right now? Getting bronze just 0.32 points away from silver, and the silver medalist having a fall bad enough that he couldn’t resume his program? All I’m saying is that Christophe should’ve placed higher.</p>
  <p><strong>Ces :D </strong>@ishiskates · 2m</p>
  <p>@Skategeek this isn’t the time for this :D</p>
  <p><strong>Angel</strong> @Viktorswife · 2m</p>
  <p>Looks like it’s bye-bye Katsuki. He was getting cocky about getting close to Viktor anyways. Ratifying a quad Lutz before Vitya? Karma’s bitch.</p>
  <p><strong>Kai </strong>@Katsudone · 1m</p>
  <p>Wtf? First of all, this has nothing to do with Viktor. He hasn’t even been attempting a quad Lutz in practice. Second of all, how is Yuuri getting cocky? Yuuri has always been humble about his abilities and he doesn’t compare himself to other skaters. 1/3</p>
  <p><strong>Kai </strong>@Katsudone · 1m</p>
  <p>“we all have different styles and our own perspective on our skating, I don’t think it’s right for us to compare ourselves to others. Each and every skater has their strengths and weaknesses. We’re all trying our best to be our best selves, and to me, that’s all that really matters.” – Yuuri Katsuki 20xx 2/3</p>
  <p><strong>Kai </strong>@Katsudone · 1m</p>
  <p>So, shut your mouth and stay in your negative little corner with your small little brain if you don’t have anything nice to say. Okay? Okay. 3/3</p>
</blockquote><p> </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>“Mr. Katsuki?” The Japanese skater looks up at the call of his name. The doctor, Dr. Sallow, stands by the door way, knuckles tapping on the wood. “We have your x-ray results, can I come in?” Yuuri shifts on the bed, flinching when he moves his injured leg. He nods, shaking his coach awake. “the results are here.” Yuuri quietly says, preparing himself for bad news.</p>
<p>He sighs, when will this be all over?  He just wanted to know what’s wrong with him an and go home. Go home and sink into the hot springs, play with his dog, or maybe have a walk with Phichit in Detroit. All he knows he is he doesn’t want to be here, in a hospital, worrying about his future and how he can skate again.</p>
<p>Could he still skate?  That’s the big question right now.  It was probably sprain, a little fracture maybe?  He hoped it was just that. He didn’t know what to do without skating.  It’s been his entire life.  Maybe he’s okay, maybe it’s just his brain thinking it hurt. Maybe it was just an illusion. God, he hoped it was just an illusion.</p>
<p>He looks up to the celling as Celestino starts talking to the doctor, drowning out the sounds of their voices. He wanted to home. Run away, sit in his bed and cry into Vicchan’s fur. This was all too much, so much at one time, he hadn’t even received the news yet. God, where, when, how can he <em>go—</em></p>
<p> “Yuuri?” A hand gently places itself on arm, grabbing the Japanese man’s attention immediately. “huh?” He asked, looking at his coach before shifting his eyes towards the doctor’s sympathetic eyes. “Dr. Salow ask if you were ready to hear your results.” Yuuri looks down to his lap, curling his hands into fists above them. He nods, slowly raising his head to look at the man. “okay…”</p>
<p>The doctor gives him a small smile before turning to his clipboard. “your left foot has a grade 1 ankle sprain, not anything too serious, and I saw in your file that you have experienced this a few times before so you already know the drill. Just keep off it, ice it to keep the swelling down, use wraps to support your ankles, keep it elevated. Your knee on the other hand…” Yuuri’s breath gets stuck in his throat, already knowing that it isn’t going to be good. “What happened to his knee, doc?” Celestino questions for Yuuri, rubbing a hand on his back.</p>
<p>Dr. Sallow sighs, looking at Yuuri with pity filled eyes.</p>
<p>Yuuri hated it, he hated that he was who the emotion was directed to. He hated that he doesn’t even know himself what had happened to him, but he already knows that it could end his career, his whole life. It all felt like a bad dream.</p>
<p>“Your knee hit the surface really hard, causing a stable fracture on your patella, it may heal with the right treatment in 2-3 months.”</p>
<p>“2-3 months isn’t such a long time. He can still compete in the next season if he takes it easy, no?” Celestino relaxes his hold on the skater, visibly relaxing. However, the doctor gives him a small apologetic smile. “unfortunately, in the process, Mr. Katsuki tore his ACL. It’s a level 2 tear and it takes around 6-9 months to heal. You may need to get surgery on both of the injuries to ensure a safer return to the sport.”</p>
<p>At that moment, Yuuri heard Celestino’s sharp intake of breath.</p>
<p>He knew it could be the end of his career.</p>
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<p>
  <strong>Phichit+chu</strong>
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<p>[Picture of Phichit and Yuuri in what looks to be a hospital room. Yuuri looking ahead of him while Phichit has his arm around Yuuri’s shoulder, looking straight at the camera]</p>
<p>♡ 3.5k likes</p>
<p><strong>Phichit+chu</strong>  <strong>@Y-Katsuki</strong> is having his surgery today, came to keep him company while we wait. ยูริทำให้ดีที่สุด!! #YuuriKatsuki #Yuuriganba #hopeforYuuri</p>
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  <em>view 1.3k comments</em>
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<p>It’s been seven months from then, and it was now the start of the competition season, Yuuri had no idea what to do.</p>
<p>He had spent the time for his recovery catching up on his college classes, pouring every bit of his time into taking care of himself, physical therapy, school, and helping out the younger skaters at the rink. Something to keep his mind off his injury.</p>
<p>He changed his major from business management to sports coaching, taking business as a minor instead. Took classes on Russian and Thai to fill the time that was used for the ice that was now empty.</p>
<p>He wasn’t used to all of this time, he wasn’t used to being unoccupied.</p>
<p>The doctor had cleared him for mild training again at the 5-month mark since his injuries had healed wonderfully and faster than most. After months of physical therapy, months of sitting around, months of being away from the ice, he was finally allowed to return to it.</p>
<p>But, of course, there was the possibility of reinjuring his knee.</p>
<p>So there he was, sitting in Celestino’s office, about to make the biggest decision of his life.</p>
<p>“I want to retire.” Yuuri quietly says, looking down to his lap to avoid his coach’s eyes. “I want to focus on school, to learn about coaching.” The room was silent; a drop of a pin could be heard. The Japanese man fidgets, worrying about what his coach might say.</p>
<p>Yuuri has been thinking about this for the last two months, thinking about what his future may look like. He could stay, skates until his legs gave out, but he knew one wrong movement and all that comes down. But he could retire, study about sports coaching, that way he can stay close to the ice even without being on it, it was the safest option for him.</p>
<p>“you’re doctor already gave you the okay, why do you still want to quit?” The stern but understanding voice of his coach interrupts the silence. “I’m scared. I’m scared I might mess up and injure myself again. I’m scared that I won’t be able to skate, dance, walk if I do injure myself again. This way, I can still keep myself connected, with the littlest risk possible.”</p>
<p>Celestino sighs, leaning back against his chair. “Without the prizes and the sponsors, where would you get your income for your college fees?” Yuuri looks up, finally. He straightens his back, taking a deep breath in. “I’m going to do ice shows, maybe get a part time job. I was hoping I could get an assistant coaching job here…”</p>
<p>“I know I can’t change your mind.” Celestino sighs when Yuuri nods firmly. “I can offer you a coaching job here, since that wouldn’t really be a big difference from what you do around here, aside form your training, of course. You spend more time assisting the younger ones than even Camilla, you’d think you were the coach instead of her.” Celestino laughs, eyes having a glimmer of sadness. “you know you’re always welcome here, Yuuri. Be it a skater or a coach, the club will always be there to support you.”</p>
<p>“I know, thank you.”</p>
<p>“now, let’s start making a few calls to the JSF and the ISU, shall we?”</p>
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<p>
  <strong>YUURI KATSUKI RETIRES AFTER AN ACCIDENT AT THE WORLD FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS</strong>
</p>
<p>
  <strong>By: Lauren Samulles </strong>
</p>
<p>A few hours ago, the JSF had released the list of skaters that would no longer be competing, and to the surprise of many, Yuuri Katsuki’s name had been on the list. As it wouldn’t be a surprise since the accident at the 20xx world figure skating championships, it was as Phichit Chulanont had been posting about Katsuki’s progress and fast recovery on Instagram.</p>
<p>The skater had been cleared to go back to the ice, but had chosen to retire instead.</p>
<p>“It was for me to prioritize my well-being and my health. The injury had taken a toll on me and I did not think it would be good for myself if I had chosen to go back. I am planning on finishing my education and am planning on coaching in the future. I will still be doing ice shows and performances. Thank you so much for all the support you have given me up to this point, it has been a pleasure to be able to skate for you. Thank you so much.” Katsuki had said in an interview with the JSF, along with the other retiring skaters.</p>
<p>It has been a pleasure to watch this young skater grow and be the best he could be. All of us at the Star wishes you good luck on your journey ahead.</p>
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<p>
  <em>3 years later</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“Pull your arms in a bit more, yeah? You’ll have a less chance of under-rotating it that way.” A Japanese man clad in Mizuno sportswear, points out to the Thai skater practicing jumps on the ice. “I wanted to do Tanos and Rippons by this age, like you were. You were off raising your arms on every jump, ratifying quads, and here I am, under-rotating a <em>toe-loop</em>.” The skater groans, skating towards the edge to the man coaching him.</p>
<p>“hey, you’re learning a <em>quad toe-loop</em>, it’s still hard to do, like learning any other jump for the first time.” Yuuri smiles, handing Phichit the water bottle. “You know, you’re the most chill coach I have ever had.” Phichit jokes, downing the bottle half way immediately. Yuuri rolls his eyes, but smiles. “I’m not technically your coach, I’m just assisting. You know I really only coach Juniors and novices.” Phichit hums, placing the water bottle on the boards. “Break time!”</p>
<p>“oh no you don’t, you took a break 10 minutes ago. We still have to get you to stop under-rotating that quad toe before the qualifiers.”  The Japanese man laughs when Phichit groans, skating closer to the center of the ice. “can you like, show me how to do it? I think it’d be better for me to see it before I attempt it, don’t you think?” Yuuri hums, narrowing his eyes. “Fine, but you better be able to do it before your session ends. I have to warm up for Alicia’s jump training anyways.”</p>
<p>The skater moves out of the way to give way for his coach to demonstrate the jump, smiling when Yuuri loops towards the center. He pulls out his phone to record the jump.</p>
<p>In the three years since Yuuri had retired, he rarely jumps any of the major jumps, an Phichit had taken the role as the person who records each and every jump, step sequence, spins and post the to his social media, but of course, Yuuri doesn’t know that. Phichit would bet anyone a hundred bucks that Yuuri would kill him if he found out.</p>
<p>He positions the device perfectly to hide it from Yuuri’s view and presses record when the man on the ice starts to gain momentum. He glides forward, switching to a backward facing position and takes off with his toe pick digging into the ice. He crosses his arms tightly on his chest, spinning four time before landing on the back outside edge of his skate.</p>
<p>He skids to a stop, turning towards the Thai skater. “you saw what I did, right? I tightened my arms, kept my core strong. If you start to get a hand of it, I might try to convince Celestino to let you practice Tanos.” Phichit smiles brightly and nods, placing his phone back on the boards. He skates towards where the Japanese man had stood, pushing him playfully to the boards.</p>
<p>Yuuri chuckles at the younger man’s antics, resting his back against the edge of the boards, looking at the skater hopping on the ice. “You ready?” Phichit nods, his expression determined. He starts to gain momentum, switching backwards, and digs his toe pick in the ice. He spins four full times and lands it, but touches down. He grunts, pushing his hand off the ice. “That was better, you got the rotations down. You just have to land it. Again.”</p>
<p>It takes 3 more touchdowns and a fall, and four more of Yuuri’s stern “again.” Until Phichit finally lands it perfectly. He lands, no wobble, no fall, no touch down onto the ice. Phichit gasps, smiling widely. “Yuuri! I did it!” Yuuri smiles back with the same amount of enthusiasm, tightening his hold on his phone before skating towards the younger man. “I recorded it for you.”</p>
<p>“Looks like you’re finally landing that Quad toe, Phichit. Great job.” A man says from the boards. “Ciao Ciao! Did you see that? It was all cause of Yuuri’s help.” The Italian man chuckles at his student’s excitement. “You’ve been doing great yourself, huh, coach Yuuri.” Celestino winks playfully at the assistant coach, who blushes in embarrassment.</p>
<p>“Anyways, take a break Phichit. I need to talk to Yuuri about something. But after your break you better be landing that quad toe at least five times before you get off the ice.”  The coach tilts his head towards his office door, gesturing Yuuri to follow him.</p>
<p>The two coaches enter the office, Yuuri closing the door behind them. They take their seats, sitting in silence just like they had three years ago. “You wanted to talk to me about something, Coach?” Yuuri nervously asks, put off by the prolonged silence. “Yes, I did.” The older coach answers curtly. He sighs and looks at the wall of trophies on the other side of the room.</p>
<p>“You’ve been offered a coaching job in saint Petersburg, by Yakov Feltsman.” Yuuri opens his mouth to speak, but no words come out of his mouth, leaving him gaping like a fish. “Coach Feltsman has been having a problem with his health lately and has also been lacking in help. He called me about me possibly lending him one of my assistant coaches to assist him in coaching some of his skaters for this season. I recommended you.”</p>
<p>“I- w-why? Do you not need me here anymore?” The Japanese man asks, voice low and trembling. “You’ll always be needed here; you are one of the biggest reasons why our skaters are improving so quickly. You know that, Yuuri.” The older coach clears his throat. “I recommended you for that reason. Mr. Feltsman is one of the most influential people in the circuit, having him on your side would be beneficial for your image as a coach in the future. This could be good for you.”</p>
<p>“but what about Phichit? Alicia? Yahiko?” Yuuri frets. Celestino chuckles, tone fond. “Yuuri, I have plenty of assistant coaches. Emily, Amber, Ivo. It’s only for a season, and you can decline. It’s all up to you.”</p>
<p>“But what if it doesn’t go well there?”</p>
<p>“Then you come back here.” Yuuri looks at his former coach, scanning his face. “You’ve been here since you were sixteen and was a junior skater hoping to make it big. Don’t ever think that you wouldn’t be welcomed here with open arms, because you are a part of our family through and through.” The Italian man gives his former student a reassuring smile, one which the younger man returns.</p>
<p>“then, I’ll do it.”</p>
<p> </p>
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<p> </p>
<p>Yuuri arrives in Russia after a 17 hours and two stop over. He adjusts his mask and sighs, gripping the suit cases he had.</p>
<p>How is he going to find his way around a busy airport, much more a city in another <em>country</em> he’s unfamiliar with. Well, at least he knew the language, thank god for Russian classes.</p>
<p>He pulls along the large suitcases, heading towards the airport’s exit to get a taxi. Maybe he should go to a café in the airport, he was pretty tired. Get some caffeine and some food in his system. He already had a place to stay, an apartment Mr. Feltsman had rented for him while for his time in Russia. He should get some groceries, but oh, he didn’t know where to get some. Crap, <em>why did he come here?</em></p>
<p>“Katsuki.” A gruff voice calls his name, making him turn reflexively. There stood two Russian men, one younger and one older, one a coach and one a skater he had used to compete against. He walks over to Yakov Feltsman and Georgi Popovich, bowing in respect when he finally reached them. “Mr. Feltsman, Mr. Popovich. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I wasn’t informed that you would be picking me up from the airport.” Yuuri says in accented Russian, shaking each of their hands. The older Russian snorts gesturing Georgi to take one of Yuuri’s ginormous suitcases.</p>
<p>“And what were you going to do? I was told you don’t know you’re way around here, having only stayed in the arena and your hotel room at competitions.” Yuuri laughs in embarrassment, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was never quite the social type, I had my eye on the prize in competitions.”</p>
<p>“some people could use that mind set.” Mr. Feltsman mumbles underneath his breath making the two younger men laugh. “let’s get you settled in your apartment, get you some groceries, essentials, etc. than tomorrow you start at the rink, you meet your new skaters Mila, Yuri, Alexei, and a few junior and novice skaters. Let’s see if you are what Mr. Cialdini makes you out to be.”</p>
<p>Yuuri takes a deep breath in before they exit the airport, the cold air of the outside slicing into his skin. “Of course, Mr. Feltsman. I will do my best.” The old coach gives him a once over, scanning his expression with careful eyes, smiling when he saw the fire of determination burning deep in his chocolate eyes.</p>
<p>Georgi laughs in amusement at the younger man’s words, looking over at his coach who had the same amused expression. “Oh Katsuki, your hair would be falling out from the stress of handling these brats.” Yakov says barely audible, but Yuuri hears it, making him give the coach a bewildered look. The Russian skater pats his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Welcome to Saint Petersburg, Katsuki. You’re in for one hell of a ride.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Meet the Sk8ers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>His best friend’s face pops up on his phone screen, the younger man setting the phone down before rummaging through the kitchen they shared. “Well hello there, great way to greet your best friend.” Yuuri sarcastically says, pushing the doors to the ice rink.<br/>“Hey! Uh, I called to ask where the knives are?”</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yuuri's routine: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zh4IUG-IjdM">Yuzuru Hanyu's performance to Chopin's Ballad No. 1</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Give me your other bag, Katsuki. I can put it in the trunk for you. You must be freezing.” The dark haired man takes Yuuri’s other bag, pointing over to the car’s back seat door. He shakily smiles, tugging his jacket closer to his body in attempt to keep himself warm. “Thanks.”</p><p>He shuffles into the back seat, the car heater greeting him as he escapes the Russian cold. “America and Japan is a lot warmer compared to Russia?” Yakov was already seated in the front seat, lips tugged down into a small frown. Yuuri sighs, placing his carry-on bag to the side. “A lot warmer in contrast to here. I don’t remember Russia being this cold.” The old man only snorts, but stays quiet after.</p><p>What Yuuri remembers isn’t much, just the time where he had to compete in Russia. And he mostly just stayed in the arena or the hotel, both of which had heaters. He was usually in Moscow, too. He wonders if the weather is any different in Moscow to St. Petersburg. He also wonders if he would have gotten to experience this type of cold if he was still competing and decided to take a stroll outside the hotel.</p><p>If someone had told Yuuri 4 years ago that he’d have a huge injury, retired early, switch majors, be an assistant coach, and moved to Russia to help train the Russian team, he would have probably laughed in their face then hide in a bathroom to panic to himself.</p><p>And now there he is. In Saint Petersburg, about to be an assistant coach to Yakov Feltsman. It feels like he’s in some kind of weird dream (nightmare?) where nothing in his life goes to plan.</p><p>Right, The plan. The plan Yuuri had mapped out for his life.</p><p>He’d have a relatively good career, try to be as good as he gets. Podium at international competitions, study his ass off in the off season, get close enough to Viktor Nikiforov’s score, maybe snatch a gold medal from under him in a competition or two, get the courage to talk to him and tell him what an inspiration he was to him, graduate with a degree for business, compete some more, retire, go home to Hasetsu, get a place of his own and adopt some dogs and live there until he dies.</p><p>Well, fate has a cruel way of saying no, huh?</p><p>Yuuri liked plans, he liked routines, traditions. It was like a path for himself, something clear and unchanging. He could’ve had that routine back, had he gone back to competing.</p><p>He shakes his head, as if shaking those thoughts with the movement. No, this was a choice he had to make, to stay on the ice, something safe. He can’t go back now, he was older, even more at risk than all those years ago.</p><p>Retiring early was a choice, switching majors was a choice, staying in Detroit even after graduating and retiring was a choice.</p><p>Coming to Russia was a choice, and he hoped to every god he believed in that he wasn’t making a mistake.</p><p>He already expects an unpleasant call from the JSF for him deciding to coach the Russians instead of the younger ones in his own country. He had already gotten that conversation when he started as an assistant coach to Celestino, much more now that he’s going to be coaching Japan’s biggest competitor in competitive figure skating.</p><p>Even as he retired, he was still part of the federation. He had obligations to the JSF which had him being needed at exhibitions and events that the federation hosted. God, what would they say once this is announced?</p><p>Yuuri was snapped out of his train of thought as the car door slams open, a cursing Georgi entering the vehicle. “Anya messaged me saying we need to talk at dinner. Do you think she’s about to tell me she’s pregnant, Yakov?” The poor old man chokes on the air, facing his skater with a disbelieving expression.</p><p>“She better not be, boy, that could be the end of yours and her career. Why would you think she’s pregnant anyways?” The younger Russian dramatically slumps over the steering wheel, singing his woes. “She’s been so irritated lately, pushing me away, she’s also been nauseous. I can’t have my career end like this, Yakov. Not when I have not beaten Viktor for even a single time.”</p><p>“I don’t think someone as careful as Anya Lipovskaya could be that careless, boy.” Yakov grunts, eyeing the Japanese man who looked uncomfortably awkward as he listens in to the conversation. “Trust me Katsuki, the other three are as much of a headache, if not more.” </p><p>Suddenly Yuuri feels a chill run down his spine. What exactly has he gotten himself into?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Now, Yuuri spoke quite a few languages, some more fluently than most. The extra language classes he took in college helps him with that, and he was good to the extent that the University tried to get him to change his major <em>again</em> from sports coaching to linguistics. But, never mind that.</p><p>The point is, Yuuri can speak a handful of languages.</p><p>But somehow he couldn’t speak coherently when he was told by Georgi, “Katsuki, from what I saw from Chulanont’s Instagram, you seem to be in wonderful competitive condition. Top notch even. Why’d you choose to retire? I would have loved to have competed against you for longer.”</p><p>He supposes he expected being asked that question one way or another when he had arrived in Russia, but he wasn’t expecting the question to be asked right after he had landed. “I-I, I don’t-“</p><p>“you don’t have to answer that question, Katsuki, it’s none of our business. Gosha, when can we expect to arrive at the food mart you shop at?” The old man disregards the question, much to Yuuri’s relief. He didn’t really want to explain the reason right now.</p><p>
  <em>The reason? That you were too much of a coward to go back to the ice? Afraid that you could never return to the glory you once had? Pathetic. </em>
</p><p>“Just in a few minutes. The mart is close to the apartment complex. Do you want to get your things in your apartment before we go get what you need, Katsuki?” Yuuri snaps his head towards the older man, waving both his hands in front of his chest, palms facing the other man. “Whatever works for you, I seriously do not mind.”  He nervously laughs, sinking even further into his seat.</p><p>The older Russian narrows his eyes, frown deepening. “You better not be this considerate when you are training my students, Katsuki. They won’t learn anything if you let them get away with things.”</p><p>Yakov’s right, Yuuri has to be firm with things. He knew that. He doesn’t know how to treat his new students yet. He’s never met them personally before. He wasn’t like Celestino who treats all his skaters the same, he needed to know each of their personalities and their skills to treat them the ways that they need to be treated.</p><p>Like with Phichit who gets distracted with his devices easily, Yuuri has to be quite strict yet he knew that Phichit was never one to listen when his coach was hard on him, so he’s also chill. Treating him as a student but an equal as well.</p><p>“I won’t be, trust me.” Yakov lips quirk into a small smirk, eyes scanning the Japanese man’s face who’s eyes burn with determination.</p><p>“good.”</p><p>The car parks into a relatively empty parking area of a grocery store. Georgi turns the car off, turning his body to face Yuuri in the back seat. “We’re here. Now, tell me. What do you think I should buy to cook for Anya?”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They pull up in front of a large building, quite fancy looking actually. It was a high building, white and grey paint adorning the outside. It was vastly decorated with bright colorful flowers that contrasted to the simple colored building. The bushes and plants were neatly trimmed and very well taken care of, Yuuri thinks his mother would have appreciated how they looked.</p><p>To put it simply, the building was beautiful and very much out of Yuuri’s budget.</p><p>Yuuri follows the two men out of the car, shivering as the cold air slaps him in the face. He looks around, searching for a possible smaller, less expensive looking place that was near. Maybe he misunderstood and this really wasn’t the place the Russian coach rented out for him.</p><p>Yuuri bites his lip when he saw no other building that looked more his budget. Don’t get him wrong, he had plenty of money to get by from shows, coaching fees, and his salary from Celestino. But he wasn’t swimming in it. He was sure that they had told Yakov of his budget for an apartment when they went over the terms and agreements.</p><p>The older Russian turns to Yuuri when he notices the Japanese man freeze. “Katsuki, what are you dawdling around for?” Yuuri snaps his attention towards the coach, hurriedly walking towards them. “I’m sorry, there must be some kind of misunderstanding. I don’t think I can afford to stay here.” He fidgets with his bag’s straps, worrying his lip between his teeth.</p><p>Yakov snorts, continuing to walk ahead of Yuuri. “Did you really think I’d let you fend for yourself in an unknown country, boy? I’m paying for your stay here for the year, it’s only fair since you got unexpectedly dragged into this in the first place. It’s more convenient you stay here, many of my skaters live in the floor your apartment is.”</p><p>“I-I can’t possibly bother you with paying for my rent, Mr. Feltsman. I-“ Yakov turns to Yuuri with a look that immediately silences him. “Just say yes and get it over with, Katsuki. We have to discuss about your role and what your job is. Though, I was assured you are excellent in this field.” Yuuri shuts his mouth and nods, turning his gaze to the carpeted floor as they enter the building.</p><p>By now, all Yuuri wanted to do was settle in, call Phichit and slam his body on a bed to sleep for all eternity. He was jet-lagged, tired, and hungry. The last thing he wanted to do when he arrived at his home for the next season was to talk business.    </p><p>They enter the lift in relatively comfortable silence, Yuuri trying to be as less of a noticeable presence as possible. He shuffles deeper into the corner as Yakov presses the button for the 7<sup>th</sup> floor, he digs his fingers into his suitcase handle. The two Russians were conversing quietly in their native tongue, something about making Georgi’s programs for the next season, to which Yuuri only listens in.</p><p>The elevator comes to a stop, the doors sliding open. The halls were empty when they stepped out, the corridors were eerily silent that you wouldn’t think anyone lived there. Probably sensing the younger man’s confusion, he chuckles a bit before clarifying his internal questions.</p><p>“This floor is sort of like a dormitory for the skaters at Coach Yakov’s rink. They’re at training right now, I guess.” Yuuri nods and follows them to the left side of the hall. “Why aren’t you at training, Mr. Popovich? If you don’t mind me asking.”</p><p>“Call me Georgi, please. I’m still recovering from a sprain, nothing big.” There was something in Georgi’s tone that made Yuuri frown. He sounded a bit sad and the laugh he let out was a bit strained. Yuuri stays quiet, opting to not say anything that made him seem to be prying.</p><p>“This is my apartment, and that is Mila’s.” Georgi points out to two doors next to each other. “This one is Yuri’s and the one across from his is your apartment.”  Yakov taps Georgi to let him pass, pulling out two keys attached to a key chain. He unlocks the door, moving aside to let Yuuri and Georgi in.</p><p>For a second, Yuuri wonders who lives in the one beside his apartment, but stops as he takes a peek into the space.</p><p>Yuuri was speechless when he walked into the place, freezing in his place in the entrance of the apartment. If the outside looked like it was way to out of Yuuri’s budget, the inside was even worse. (or better, he couldn’t tell anymore). He walks in to look around.</p><p> The apartment by itself wasn’t much bigger than the one he and Phichit shared in Detroit, but Yuuri was supposed to be living <em>alone</em> instead of having a roommate. The walls were painted white with gray accented to the tops and bottoms of the walls, with the floors carpeted with fluffy gray carpet. The entrance lead to a small but quaint kitchen and a dining area. Next to the dining area was the living room with a small corridor that probably lead to a tiled bathroom and a standard bedroom.</p><p>“Once you put your things in the room I want you in the kitchen immediately, Katsuki. The sooner we get this done the better.”</p><p>Yuuri shuffles into the room, eager to get it done so he can lay on the bed to crash and burn.</p><p>He slips off his coat and places it on the chair by the desk. The place was fully furnished, too. Sure, Yuuri had to send a few things there from Detroit like some kitchen supplies, toiletries, clothes, but he hadn’t been needed to bring along furniture.</p><p>He left all his Viktor Posters in Detroit.</p><p>With Phichit.</p><p>Oh the regret that fills him when he examines the plain white walls of the room.</p><p>He sighs, readying himself for a probably long conversation with Yakov while he’s seconds away from passing out. Jeez, couldn’t this wait until tomorrow?</p><p>Yuuri groans, walking out of the room towards the kitchen where the coach was sitting on one of the chairs in the small dining area with papers in front of him in a neat stack. “Mr. Feltsman?” Yuuri takes a seat in front of him, tucking his hands in between his thighs in attempt to warm them.</p><p>“Shall we start?” Yakov picks up the papers, handing Yuuri a copy. The papers were bound together with gold coated staples, it having up to six pages at most. Yuuri mourns the loss of a short meeting as he flips through them. Sure, six pages might not seem like a lot, but seeing the bullets upon bullets of rules, guidelines, and instructions just assured Yuuri of him not having a peaceful afternoon with an insane amount of sleep, food, and tea.</p><p>“As you know, you will be training three of my senior skaters, two of my juniors, and have a class with a group of novices. Do you have any objections with that?” He shakes his head, placing the papers on the table to give the old coach his full attention. “As much as I don’t want to, I can only work with my skaters 3 days a week. You may need to keep an eye on my older skaters. Make sure they’re training, give them the necessary critiques and corrections.” Yakov sips on his cup of coffee. They must’ve made their own beverages when Yuuri was settling in.</p><p>“I have been told about your background on ballet, I want you to assist in off-ice ballet training with our instructors.” Yuuri was, of course, pretty skilled at ballet. He had at least two decades of it to prove it, but he had never assisted out of the ice before. He always found giving advice on skating more in his comfort zone more than anything else.</p><p>Minako, bless her soul, was a rough teacher. She had Yuuri work on his pirouettes, had him working on adagio, drilled leaps into him for hours on end. She always made sure he was as graceful as a swan and as flexible as rubber. Though, Yuuri would always be grateful for all the ballet training she made him do through the years. It was the core of his style of skating, the style of skating that absolutely no one can replicate.</p><p>“The students I have assigned to you lack the artistic skill, something you are known for. I, of course, expect you to help them with jumping since you were a pretty well-rounded skater. However, I have purposefully given you these specific skaters for an improvement on their interpretation.” The coach continues, unknowing of Yuuri’s growing discomfort.</p><p>He didn’t like the expectations placed on him. He doesn’t like it one bit.</p><p>“I will be evaluating their progress every two weeks. If I see anything in their skating worsen instead of improving, I’m sorry but you aren’t fit to be on my team.” The younger man nods, his hands starting to fidget on his lap.</p><p>“Now, let’s talk about your skaters.” The older man flips to the next page of the document. “group of novice skaters consists of five children. Dima, Dmitri, Maxim, Nikolai, and Mikhail. They have been practicing on their double jumps and spins lately, nothing too big yet. I don’t want them working an triples yet.” Yuuri nods, taking a random pen from the table and jutted down notes.</p><p> “The Junior skaters, Katrina and Igor. They are quite the handful, those two. They bicker a lot since they are siblings, but they are very competent on the ice. Katrina has been working on her triple axel, a jump I have complete confidence you can help her with. And Igor has been working to get a Quadruple toe loop in his repertoire, I also trust you can help him with that.”</p><p>“however, the two of them has recently gone through a growth spurt. Katrina has lost a fraction of her flexibility and Igor has not gotten a hang on skating. As I said before, they are very technically competent, however, they have low scores on their PCS.”</p><p>Yuuri winces, he remembers his own growth spurt when he was thirteen. He remembers almost losing his ability to perform a Bielmann and Minako holding him in the studio when she found out. The pain on the sides of his hips when he kept failing on landing his jumps. Puberty was not fun.</p><p>“As for the senior skaters, there’s Mila, Alexei, and Yuri. Lucky for you, you have one angel in the group who listens to everything you say. Alexei is pretty well rounded, decent in both technical and performance, but I do believe you can help him in bettering his skills. He gets nervous a lot. Stumbles on his jumps in competition.” Yuuri understands. He understands a whole lot.</p><p>“Mila is very capable in the technical parts, mediocre at best on artistry. She lacks the general focus in things, but very determined to succeed.” He knew of Mila Babicheva. She was stepping up the ranks in Juniors when Yuuri was still competing. A jumping spitfire, they used to call her. She won Europeans they season before, much to Sara’s dismay when she called to update Yuuri on her season.</p><p>
  <em>I was this close, this close to be the two-time European champion. So close! But I did flub that triple lutz-Triple loop combo, I suppose she won it fair and square. But still! Anyways, Mickey has been chasing away anyone who I talk to-</em>
</p><p>The Crispino siblings will never fail to amuse Yuuri.</p><p>“Now, Yuri. Very flexible, very capable. He is about to debut this year as a senior skater. He already has two quads under his belt, has relatively good spins. His interpretation on his programs are a bit bland, his spins can use improvement. He doesn’t listen very well, but I trust you can find a way to get through him.” The younger man nods, stopping on his note taking. “Are those all of them?” Yakov nods as he starts to tidy up the documents. “You will start tomorrow. Make introductions to the staff and the skaters. I expect you to be well rested and present at the arena at 5:00 AM.”</p><p>He gets up from his seat, grabbing his coat and hat. “You know where Georgi lives, go to him if you need anything. I suggest you get some rest. Have a good afternoon, Katsuki.” Yuuri watches as the coach walks to the door, slumping over the table when he heard the soft click of the door.</p><p>
  <em>Again, what have I gotten myself into?</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>“Why, hello stranger! It’s been a while!” </em>Is what the first thing Yuuri hears when he receives a call from his best friend. He smiles, plopping his exhausted self onto the queen sized bed. “Hey. Sorry I didn’t call until now, I got caught up in a talk with Mr. Feltsman.” He hears shifting on the other side of the line, as well as the sounds of blades on ice and yells of coaches.</p><p><em>“It’s only been less than a day since you left and you don’t have time for your best friend already, Mr. Big shot coach.”</em> Phichit teases, causing Yuuri to roll his eyes. “Oh shush, shouldn’t you be training right now? Does Celestino know you’re on your phone again?” Phichit laughs with an underlying tone of mischief.</p><p><em>“Well, no. But! He did say to give him updates on you, so I think this is a good excuse.”</em> Yuuri laughs fondly. “Whatever you say, Phich.”</p><p><em>“So how’d the thing with Yakov Feltsman go? Did you get to see the rink? Meet your skaters?”</em> The older of the two sighs, walking over to the window. “No, I haven’t seen the rink yet. I’m supposed to meet the skaters tomorrow, though they seem to live in the apartments next to mine? And, I don’t know. He kept saying what he expected of me, how well rounded I was as a skater, how I can improve these prodigal skaters of his. I don’t know if I can live up to those expectations. He wants me to assist in ballet, too! I don’t know if I’m cut out for this, Phichit.”</p><p>The other end of the line was silent for a few minutes, worrying Yuuri that Phichit had found him annoying and left him hanging.</p><p>
  <em>“Yuuri, you don’t know just how much of a wonderful skater, coach, mentor, whatever you want to call it, you are. You helped me so much I can’t even begin to thank you. I think—no, I know that you can meet his expectations and go beyond that, cause that’s just who you are. If you don’t feel comfortable there, you can always come back to Detroit. But you and I know that you won’t be satisfied until you can help these skaters.” </em>
</p><p>Yuuri wetly laughs, leaning against the wall by the window. “Thanks Phich, I’ll try. God, I miss you so much already.” A laugh escapes the younger boy on the other side of the line. <em>“as much as I hate you right now for leaving me to face Ciao Ciao’s wrath alone, I know this is something that you need. Now be the best coach the Russian team’s ever seen!” </em></p><p>Just as Yuuri was about to reply, a deep voice came from the background of Phichit’s call. <strong><em>“Phichit! You better go back to training or I’m making you run suicides!”</em> </strong></p><p>Now that was a sentence Yuuri was very familiar with, making him laugh when the call became almost undecipherable with the sound of wind and skates scraping on the ice. <em>“you’ll never take me alive!” </em></p><p>And that was another sentence Yuuri was overly familiar with.</p><p>He stands there, listening as Phichit skates all over the rink trying to get away from his annoyed coach. He remembers his training as a skater, as a coach, in Detroit.</p><p>He sits there, in another city, another country, another <em>continent</em>, miles away from the place he called home for the last seven years.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Oh my <em>god</em>” the newly awaken man groans, slightly lifting himself to turn his alarm off. The numbers <em>4:15 am</em> were glaring at him in blinding white from his phone screen. He tries to rub the sleepiness off as he drags his hand down his face, fully sitting up from the <em>extremely</em> comfortable bed.</p><p><em>That’s odd, I usually have my alarm set at five-thirty for morning practice. </em>He thinks, stretching his arms above his head with a yawn. He finally looks around, startling at the unfamiliar area. But then he remembers. Right, he’s in Russia. With five am practice.</p><p>He peels off the warm blanket off his body, shivering as the morning cold greets him in full force. “Jesus Christ, I should get a heater…” he gets up from the bed to walk over to his suitcase that held his training gear. He pulls out a black turtleneck skin tight shirt and black leggings along with a Mizuno jacket and places them on the bed before grabbing a fluffy towel and heading to the bathroom.</p><p>The apartment was silent, a drastic contrast to his usual mornings with him and Phichit rushing to get to the rink. The rest of the apartment was cold too, he observes. No one fussing over a barely awake Yuuri. no one heating up water for their morning tea and coffee. No one to fight for who gets the bathroom first.</p><p>Yuuri sighs, it needed some getting used to. This was going to be what he’s waking up to for the next year. Just a cold, sad, empty apartment with no one to bother and no one to bother him.</p><p>He walks into the bathroom and hops into the shower, still thanking the gods he took those Russian classes in university for his ability to read the Cyrillic lettering on the shower controls reading <em>hot, cold </em>and <em>warm.</em> </p><p>He was, by a large margin, more awake now. He’s changed into his clothes, has his gear bag on the stool as he makes his green tea. He had around twenty minutes to get to the sports palace, which meant he had to get going soon.  </p><p>Yuuri didn’t know where the arena was located, and he reckons the skaters get to have their practice time after the staff arrives so he probably couldn’t just go ask Georgi for directions to the sports palace. He pulls up the maps app on his phone, typing in <em>Yubileyny sports palace </em>in the search bar.</p><p>It was near. Near enough that he can probably jog there to get some cardio in.</p><p>He pours his tea in a portable coffee cup, blowing on it before screwing the top on. Hurriedly, the man shrugs his coat on and slings his gear bag on his shoulders before walking to the entrance where his shoes rest. He slips his feet into his black and gray Mizuno running shoes, double checking for his wallet, keys, and phone before slipping into the empty hallway.</p><p>Like it was before, the halls were empty but the sounds of other residents getting ready for the day are heard through the doors. He was sure he heard a few mewls and barks from his neighbors’ house old pets. The Japanese man smiles to himself, remembering his early morning jogs with his own loyal companion.</p><p>He had to leave the small poodle in Hasetsu when he had left for America when he had been discovered by Celestino when he was sixteen. The darn dorm didn’t allow pets, but that didn’t stop Phichit from smuggling in his beloved hamsters. Apart from his usual appearances in his and Mari’s weekly skype calls, he hasn’t seen Vicchan since then.</p><p>He starts to walk to the lift after double checking if his door was locked, his footsteps muffled by the carpet under his shoes.</p><p>Yuuri walks into the elevator and was pressing the button for the lower ground floor when he heard hurried footsteps. “Wait! Hold the elevator open please!” Yuuri’s eyes widen, quickly pressing his thumb on the button to hold the doors open as they were about to close. A young boy, probably around the ages 15-19, crouches over the elevator railing when he got inside. “I- uh. Are you okay?” Yuuri hesitantly asks.</p><p>The boy waves him off, still not facing him. “I’m okay! Sorry, it must be weird having to deal with that bright and early-“ The boy’s eyes widen as he finally turns to face the man in the elevator with him. Yuuri chuckles, giving him a small smile. “don’t worry. I was just surprised, is all. I didn’t think anyone would be rushing as early as now.”</p><p>“You- You’re Yuuri Katsuki.” The boy says, out of breath. “Uh- yes?” as if on cue, the boy stands up straight and awkwardly bows. “I’m a huge fan! My name is Alexei Shostakovich, I’m a senior men’s figure skater.”</p><p> Yuuri beams and adjusts his body to full face the boy. “Alexei Shostakovich, I knew you were familiar when you ran into the elevator. You were the Junior World Champion two years ago, yes?” Alexei nods, stunned that the figure skater he looked up to since he was a child knew about him and his achievements. “if you don’t mind me asking, Mr. Katsuki. What are you doing here in St. Petersburg?” He asks with an unsure tone to his voice.</p><p>“Mr. Feltsman hasn’t told you?” the younger boy shakes his head. “told me what?”</p><p>Yuuri was surprised. He had thought the older coach had told his students about the arrangement beforehand to avoid any misunderstandings. Apparently not, then.</p><p>Yuuri shakes his head, walking out of the elevator as it opens. “I don’t think it’s for me to tell.” The younger boy opens his mouth to speak, but was cut off my Yuuri. “You are going to the rink, correct? Would you mind if I went with you? I’m still not quite familiar with my way around here.” He smiles, hoping the teen would drop the subject.</p><p>He was relieved when Alexei nods, pulling his scarf closer to his neck as they were about to exit the building. “It’s that way. It’s near here, so would you mind running there?” The boy asks, earning a smile from the older man. “not at all. Let’s go.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The two arrived at the building just 5 minutes before 5, quickly slipping into the building to escape the morning chill. “And here we are.” Alexei announces to no one I particular, basking in the heated building. “you don’t like the cold?” Yuuri chuckles, following the younger boy. He shakes his head, walking towards the front desk to check in.</p><p>“I don’t particularly like it, but I don’t mind. I just prefer being warm.” The Japanese man hums, looking around at the huge lobby where three Russian flags hung on the wall. “I didn’t get to ask you earlier, Alexei, but why are you so early?”</p><p>“I like getting a head start on off ice training before the others arrive. It gets pretty rowdy in the studio when Madam Baranovskaya isn’t present. There aren’t many staff to make sure we’re all in order.” He laughs. “ah, yes.”</p><p>“Katsuki!!” a gruff voice erupts from behind the two men, to which the two of them turned to. Yuuri gives the owner of the voice a smile, straightening his posture and nodding in his direction. “Good morning Mr. Feltsman.” The coach’s eyes shift to his student, an eyebrow raising. “I see you’ve met Alexei.”</p><p>“Ah, yes. We met in the elevator this morning.” Yakov nods, turning his attention to the skater. “Get to the studio then, Alyosha.” The young man nods, giving Yuuri a smile before scrambling to get to the dance studio.</p><p>“Katsuki, let’s go.” The older coach starts walking in the opposite direction to where Alexei rushed off to, leaving the Japanese man to scramble to walk beside him. “That was the front desk. Make sure you check in or you wouldn’t get your pay check.” Yuuri nods, following slightly behind the old man. “yes sir.”</p><p>“our skaters usually come for training at around 6:30-7 am, with the exemption of Alyosha and Vitya sometimes.” They pass enter a room that vaguely smelled of food and air freshener. “This is the cafeteria; we only serve things that fit with the students’ diets so we won’t have anything carb or sugar loaded.”</p><p>A petite woman comes from the backroom, holding a tray filled with containers of different assortments of salads. She smiles when she spots the two men at the entrance, waving them over. “Good morning Mr. Feltsman. I have your usual right here, a sandwich and a black coffee.”   The old coach smiles politely, taking the paper bag from the counter. “This is our nutritionist, Elizaveta Turkmesheva. Prepares our meals from time to time as well.”</p><p>Elizaveta gives Yuuri a warm smile and extends her arm towards him. “Just call me Liza, please.” He shakes her hand, returning the smile. “Yuuri Katsuki.” To Yuuri’s surprise the woman gives him a small smirk with a playful look in her eyes. “oh, I know.”</p><p>The expression on her face throws him off, his grip on her hand loosening. His smile falters slightly. “I- Okay?” her smile widens, letting the man’s hand. “So, Yuuri, what would you like for this morning?” Yuuri looks at Yakov, silently asking permission to take a bit of time, to which the older man stiffly nods. “I’ll have an egg sandwich please.”</p><p>“Sure thing! Do you want coffee with that?” Yuuri shakes his head, thanking her before she goes to make the sandwich. </p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“There are two rinks in the arena— the Olympic sized and the NHL sized rink—, about 3 private dance studios, a gym, etc. as you saw before. I understand you might want to get a feel of the studio and the rink, just be here before 6:30 so you can meet your students.” Yuuri nods and bows politely. “Of course Mr. Feltsman.”</p><p>“You can just call me Yakov. Much less of a mouthful, no? now go ahead before your time runs out Yuuri.” Yuuri shifts his gear bag higher on his shoulder. “Yes, Mr. Fe- Uh, I mean, Yakov. I’ll be there before 6:30”</p><p>The Japanese man sprints to one of the empty dance studio, hoping to fit in time to get used to the feeling of the studio and the rink. it was now 5:23 and they had just finished the tour of the sports palace. It didn’t take as long as Yuuri had thought, the sports palace looked much more complicated from the outside due to its large structure.</p><p>The first studio had been occupied by Alexei, so Yuuri had chosen the empty studio next to his. The room was quite large, all white walls aside from the large mirror that occupied one. The barre was wooden and well-polished, similar to the ones in Detroit as well as the ones in Minako-sensei’s studio.</p><p>He placed the large bag that held all of his gear down on the Adagio roll floor by the entrance, taking out his ballet flats. He places his coat and scarf down onto the small table by the side of the room before he plugs his phone into the sound system. The man pressed on the shuffle button to play a random song.</p><p>Yuuri tunes out everything aside from the music as he positions himself by the barre. He grips onto the wood, letting his body’s memory take over.</p><p>The routine he’s practiced since he was a toddler, it was as easy as breathing to Yuuri.</p><p>It was odd in a way, every time he was left alone in a room that only had a mirror and a barre his mind always seemed to take him back to the quaint studio in Hasetsu. Where he would spend hours on end after school, before skating practice, when he felt antsy in the middle of the night.</p><p>He remembers all those times when he would knock on Minako’s door so late at night to ask for a key of her dance studio. After a few times this incident had happened, Minako had given in and just gave Yuuri a copy of the key to keep him from disturbing her slumber.</p><p>All those nights when he recreated Viktor Nikiforov’s routine in dance when he felt he couldn’t do it on the ice, all those nights when he had been frustrated with himself after a hard day on the ice, all those nights when he felt like he couldn’t do anything right. The studio was always where he had gone.</p><p>He had been a dancer first. He would always be thankful for that.</p><p>He finishes up his warm up, getting up from his split position on the floor to play a piece he had been choreographing for since he saw the world championships a few months ago.</p><p> He had originally intended to give this choreography to Phichit, but had decided against it when he had cited his plans to skate to the sound track of The King and The Skater.</p><p>So he tweaked it to fit him more.</p><p>The first notes of Chopin’s ballad No. 1 comes from the speakers of Yuuri’s phone. He stills for a moment before rolling his head, falling into the steps he now knew so well. He does a pirouette for the quad Salchow, and a barrel turn for when the quad-triple toe loop is supposed to be.</p><p>He feels himself get into Fouettes, the world around him start to spin. He replaces the triple axel with a tour jete. He imagines being on the ice, the thrill and anxiety from being watched by thousands of people.</p><p>This would’ve been a beautiful program for competition. A strong technical base score with a high artistic levels too. It could’ve been a record breaking skate performed by the right person.</p><p>He reached the end of the routine, panting and out of breath. It wasn’t complete yet, there was still something missing and needed refinement in the routine. Maybe he could give this routine to one of his students, maybe.</p><p>Yuuri crouches down, trying to level his breathing.</p><p>He looks up to see the time to see that almost 30 minutes had passed. He starts to clean up, making sure the studio had been the state that it had been before he had arrived before walking out the room and headed to the rink.</p><p>The phone in Yuuri’s pocket starts vibrating, the theme of the king and the skater echoing through the once dead silent hall. Yuuri immediately knew who was calling him, he only set that ringtone to one person. He rolls his eyes with a small smile playing on his lips, picking up the face time call.</p><p>His best friend’s face pops up on his phone screen, the younger man setting the phone down before rummaging through the kitchen they shared. “Well hello there, great way to greet your best friend.” Yuuri sarcastically says, pushing the doors to the ice rink.</p><p>“Hey! Uh, I called to ask where the knives are?” The Japanese man laughs at his friend’s frantic searching, propping his phone up on the seat next to him so he can tie his laces. “second drawer from the right, the kitchen scissors are there too.” Phichit smiles as he presents the sharp knife like a trophy before placing it down on the counter beside his phone.</p><p>“I’m making a little snack right now, I went to your room to ask you to make something for the both of us, but then I remembered that my personal chef is now in another continent.” Yuuri places his hard guards on his blades, taking his water bottle and towel along with his phone. “you didn’t even know where your own silverware was. Are you sure you can survive on your own?” Yuuri teases, sliding off his guards before sliding onto the very familiar ice.</p><p>Phichit rolls his eyes, adjusting the camera to put his food preparation in frame. “Ha ha, I can live perfectly well on my own, thank you very much.”</p><p>Yuuri chuckles, placing his phone on the boards, making sure the rink was seen. “Sure.”</p><p>“Are you at the rink right now?” Yuuri only responds by skating out of frame and doing a Biellmann spiral in view. He skids to a stop in front of the camera. Yuuri grimaces, stretching out his leg. “Are you okay?” the man on the phone screen asks, concern clearly etched on his face.</p><p>“Yeah, I’m good. Don’t worry. I just feel my flexibility getting worse, I feel old.”</p><p>“honey, at least you have the flexibility. You were literally one of the only ones who could do a Biellmann in your division when you were competing.” Phichit winces, remembering his past attempts of copying Yuuri’s old program. “For good reason too.”</p><p>“It was hard maintaining that flexibility, trust me.” Yuuri says, shuddering from his own war flashbacks.</p><p> </p><p>“Anyways, how’s the Yubileyny Sports Palace? Have you met your students?” the younger man directs his attention to the onions he’s slicing, careful to not slice open his fingers. “It’s huge, bigger than the ice arena we used in that training camp in Canada.” Phichit nods, urging Yuuri to answer his second question.</p><p>“I met one of my students, a competitor of yours.”</p><p>“Coaching the enemy now, are we Yuuri?” Phichit playfully says, making Yuuri laugh. “You better watch out, Chulanont.”</p><p>“Bring it on.” The Thai man laughs, returning to his onions. “Who’d you meet?”</p><p>“Alexei Shostakovich.’’ Phichit ponders a while then snaps his fingers, finally recognizing the name. “I remember him! The one who got silver over me at the autumns classic last year! I remember him gawking at you like he was wondering if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if you were really there.”</p><p>“He was probably looking at something behind me. I’m not that special. He’s a good kid.”</p><p>“… He’s only like, five years younger than you.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“Now you really sound like an old person.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Phichit+chu</strong>
</p><p>[a screenshot of a video call. Phichit posing with his fingers in a V shape, while Yuuri poses with the same gesture but is holding his foot above his head in a split position. Yuuri’s background is an unfamiliar ice rink.]</p><p>♡ 5.8k likes</p><p><strong>Phichit+chu</strong> First day without <strong>@Y-Katsuki</strong> in Detroit L the club already feels less fun. #YuuriKatsuki #Detroitskaters #bestfriend</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p><strong>Crispysara</strong> Yuuri already went?! <strong>@Y-Katsuki</strong> you have betrayed our friendship.</p>
  <p><strong>Christophe-gc</strong> Where’d <strong>@Y-Katsuki</strong> go?</p>
  <p><strong>Katsudone</strong> Did Yuuri leave the DSC? Does this mean we’re losing our only source of Yuuri content? ༼ つ ಥ_ಥ ༽つ</p>
  <p><strong>Iceicebb</strong> WAIT! DOESN’T THE RINK LOOK LIKE THE TEAM FELTSMAN’S HOME RINK?!?!?!</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“HA?! WHY IS HE HERE?!” loud shouts enter the rink as Yuuri was mid-triple axel, causing him to land awkwardly on his edge and fall on is hip. He hisses, getting up from his position on the ice to cradle his now probably bruised hip. “Yuri! Manners!”</p><p>The blond teenager grimaces, ignoring his coach. “I just want to know why this pathetic quitter of a pig is in MY home rink.” Georgi steps in, patting the teen’s head. “now, now Yura. Let’s not pretend you don’t have at least five posters of Mr. Katsuki here in your room, or the way you cried when he announced his retirement, or how you’ve been religiously following Chulanont’s social media for Katsuki’s jumps and step sequences.” The teenager growls, knocking his senior’s hand off of his head.</p><p>“As much as we love having the great Yuuri Katsuki here, we would like to know <em>why</em> he’s here?” one of the skaters from the doorway asks, a girl with bright red hair, though he couldn’t see her facial features from this far without his glasses. Ah, Mila Babicheva. The skater who beat Sara at the Europeans.</p><p>There were other skaters with the red haired girl, two younger skaters and a skater Yuuri knows.</p><p>
  <em>Pfft. Knows is putting it lightly. The skater you’ve idolized since you were twelve? The skater who you’ve never actually talked to aside from the podium pleasantries and polite greetings?</em>
</p><p>Yuuri shakes his head, skating towards the boards where his towel and water bottle rested. The skaters’ eyes followed his every move, down to watching him drink his water and place his blue rimmed glasses back on his nose.</p><p>This time it was the younger teenage boy who broke the silence, looking at the old coach expectantly. “Well?”</p><p>Yakov lets out a disgruntled sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Alright children, line up!” the Russian coach ignores the protesting squawk that came from the blond, urging the skaters to line up in front of the boards.</p><p>Yuuri straightens up, skidding to where the group were. He crosses his left leg behind his right, linking both of his arms behind his back.</p><p>“As you all know, my health hasn’t been the best lately.” The skaters nod, not really knowing where the conversation was going. “My doctor has been telling me to take a break, so I am doing that now.”</p><p>“as you all should know, this is Yuuri Katsuki.” Yuuri gives them a nod, but says nothing. “Katsuki will be taking my place in training you for this season. Gosha and Vitya will be staying under me, however in times where I cannot be here, Katsuki will be the one supervising the two of you.”</p><p>Yuuri feels that familiar feeling of eyes burning into him. A feeling he hadn’t experienced since the world championships three years ago. He tries to ignore it, but fails as he catches sight of ocean blue orbs.</p><p>“so you’re saying this <em>pig</em> will be the one coaching me for my senior debut. Why are you only caching the old man and the drama queen?” Yuri all but yells, causing Yuuri to flinch at the boy’s tone.</p><p>Yakov sighs, for possibly the eighth time in this entire exchange. Yuuri feels bad for him, oh how his hair used to be in his competition days. All golden and rich.</p><p>“Because your PCS needs work. All of you that I assigned to Katsuki. I cannot coach you all at once, and Vitya and Gosha has been doing this for their entire lives. They do not need a coach to oversee them all the time.”</p><p>Yakov sighs, <em>again,</em> and turns to face the man awkwardly standing on the ice. “Katsuki, these are the skaters that will be under your care for the next season. You’ve met Alyosha, Gosha, and Vitya. I don’t believe you’ve met the others.”</p><p>Yuuri shakes his head. “I believe I met Ms. Babicheva at last year’s World championships through Sara Crispino. Though I have heard about you Mr. Plisetsky, Mr. Tukmachev, and Ms. Tukmacheva. Brilliant technique for your age groups, I must say.” The Japanese man smiles, desperately hoping that this little meeting be over soon. He spoke in English, he soon realized</p><p>“Well Katsuki, I leave them to you to carefully assess their skills. I have meeting with my doctor at eight.” Yuuri bids the old coach goodbye before turning his attention back to the seven skaters staring at him all with different expressions. The Japanese man nervously laughs, scratching the back of his neck.</p><p>“Uh, hi? I guess you already know me so I won’t need to introduce myself. I suppose I should evaluate you individually.” Yuuri switches to Russian, sliding towards the rink side. He snaps on his red and white blade guards, slinging his towel over his shoulder. “since when did you speak Russian?” the blond kid asks.</p><p>“I learned bits and pieces of it in high school, but never really got into it until my injury. The university I went to had a good program.” He shrugs, leaning on the boards. “I suppose I’ll start with the girls. Ms. Tukmacheva?”</p><p>The girl nods, snapping off her blade guards and skating to where Yuuri was with the boards separating them. “I’ll give you some time to warm up. Tell me when you’re ready.” Yuuri smiles at the girl as she gives him a firm nod and a smile of her own. She starts to circle around the rink, building momentum to launch herself into a double axel.</p><p>Yuuri involuntarily winces as she stumbles, two footing her landing.</p><p>He feels a presence beside him, turning his head to see the dark haired Russian man, he smiles. “we finally get to see the coach side of the great Yuuri Katsuki.” Yuuri laughs, not knowing what to say. “Is this what you do with all of your skaters?”</p><p>He hums, eyes following the young girl’s every move, taking note of her habits as she warms up. “When I first meet them, yes. I need to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, so I know where we can improve on things.” He smiles at the Katrina as she passes by, taking notes on her movements.</p><p>“Can’t skate yet, huh?” Yuuri smiles sympathetically. “Yeah, I’ll be able to in a week or so.” Yuuri nods, waving goodbye to the older man as he excuses himself to talk to Mila.</p><p>“Yuuri!” A cheery voice calls out to him, taking him by surprise when Viktor Nikiforov leans on the boards beside him. “Why didn’t you reach out to me after the Grand prix on your last season? We never got to get to know each other!”</p><p>
  <em>…What?</em>
</p><p>The silver haired man beams brightly at him, almost blinding Yuuri.</p><p>“It’s a shame you didn’t decide to continue competing; we could’ve gotten to know each other there.” Yuuri stood there, confused. His attention now fully off the skater on the ice and now on the man beside him. <em>The man he had put on a pedestal for half of his life.</em></p><p>“But not to worry! We have a lot of time to get to know each other now!”</p><p>
  <em>… What the fuck is happening.</em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>TeamFeltsmanOfficial</strong>
</p><p>[Picture of the team Feltsman skaters along with Yakov Feltsman and Yuuri Katsuki, all huddled on the ice]</p><p>♡ 10.6k likes</p><p><strong>TeamFeltsmanOfficial</strong> We would like to Welcome <strong>@Y-Katsuki</strong> to <em>#Teamfeltsman</em>! We’re excited to have you for this season!</p><p>
  <em>Translated from Russian</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>CAN WE JUST LIKE--- THE TRAILER OMG</p><p>THE FANDOM JUST SLOWLY COMING BACK TO LIFE KDJWEHFUHFUEHF</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. St. Petersburg Nights</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crispysara: I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH TREACHERY<br/>: MY OWN DRUNK POLE DANCING SON, I HAVE BEEN WOUNDED<br/>Y-Katsuki: What?<br/>: Also, who changed the group name? again?<br/>Phichit+chu: That would be Chris.<br/>: The name fits tho.<br/>Christophe-gc: No one can get enough of these beautiful things.<br/>: Nothing can beat our Yuuri’s ass, though. As much as that saddens me.<br/>Y-Katsuki: Please stop talking about my ass.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Katrina's long program-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVOyCTa0kZc&amp;t=308s">Alexandra Trusova long program for the 2020-2021 season</a><br/>Yuri's long program-<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke0iusvydl8&amp;t=419s">Yulia Lipnitskaya Sochi Olympics long program</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yuuri looked up at the beaming man, eyebrows furrowed and lips downturned in confusion. “… Pardon?” he watched at the man’s joyful face falter before stiffening into his media perfect smile. “i-“</p><p>“Mr. Katsuki? I’m ready.” The junior skater on the ice abruptly stops, skates shredding the ice to snow beneath her feet. Yuuri’s shoulders loosen in relief, smiling apologetically at Viktor. “Sorry, I have to…” he gestures to his notepad with a shake to his hand. The older man smiles understandingly, stepping to his left side to give Yuuri some space. “I can help you if you want.”</p><p>Yuuri looks at him with wide eyes and his lips slightly parted. “I- um, sure. That would be great, thanks.” He turns to face the Katrina, who’s lips tilted in an amused smirk and an eyebrow raised. Yuuri ignores the look and diverts his attention to the notebook resting on the barrier.</p><p>“Call me Yuuri, please, you are to be with me for the season. There is no need for the formalities.” Yuuri smiles before licking his lips, flipping the pages to where he wrote his notes on Katrina. “Katya.” Yuuri furrows his eyebrows, eyes snapping to the teen. “sorry?”</p><p>“since I can call you Yuuri, you can call me Katya. It is an honor to train under you, Coach Yuuri.” Yuuri feels a small twinge in his chest, he smiles.</p><p>Yuuri has never trained skaters that wasn’t a DSC skater, and the skaters from the DSC were skaters he knew for so long. Hearing those words from the junior skater, who he had just met, slightly eased the doubt in his mind.</p><p>“I watched your programs from last season, and I have a bit of a glimpse on what your ability. But I would love to see it on person so I have a better grasp on what we could possibly improve.” The skater nods and stays quiet, allowing her now coach to continue. “your technical ability is astounding. A triple lutz- triple flip combination under your belt, along with the quadruple Salchow and a triple axel you are working on. You do your jumps with your arms above your head, beautiful to watch, really.”</p><p>Katrina grins with excitement. “I wanted to do jumps like how you and Sara Crispino did. You were like tornadoes.” Yuuri laughs, ducking his face down to avoid the gazes of the girl and the man beside him.</p><p>“thank you, I’m sure Sara would be happy to hear you say that.” he takes his phone and connects it to the speaker, readying Katrina’s long program music from the previous season. “you ready to show me what you got?” the Japanese man’s lips twinge upwards at the girl’s determined nod, then jerks his head to the middle of the ice.</p><p>Yuuri sees Katya relax into her opening pose and starts the music. It was one of the most familiar piece from a sound track Yuuri had heard over and over again, having used it himself and most of the skaters he knew as well. The Romeo and Juliet soundtrack.</p><p>The opening of the piece rings throughout the wide area of the rink and Katya swings to both her sides with her hands behind her back. She gains momentum before launching into a triple Salchow, her arm above her head before bringing it down with a snap as she lands.</p><p>Yuuri takes note on her hesitance before the jump and the small wobble on her landing, jutting the components with his estimated scores on the paper without his eyes leaving the performance with practiced ease.</p><p>Her next jumping pass was her signature triple lutz- triple flip combination, landing it so perfectly Yuuri almost whistled at the ease the skater had while digging her toe pick into the ice. Once again, a perfect landing on the triple Salchow.</p><p>She skated backwards, gaining too much speed for her double axel. Yuuri of all people knew the needed speed for a double axel. This was far too much and she was going to over rotate it—</p><p>She faces forward and launches herself into— not a double— a triple axel. She lands, losing her balance and falling on the side of her hip. It was almost like a flashback to what had happened that faithful day in London. He hears a faint sound of concern from beside him, but it was almost blurred to the background.</p><p>However, unlike Yuuri, she gets up and spins. He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.</p><p>She continues her program, slowing her movements with the music. She lowers herself into a gravity defying cantilever stepping into the choreographic sequence. Yuuri frowns, he still sees the signs of pain on Katya’s face and with her favoring her other side.</p><p>He can definitely see where Yakov was coming from when he had said her steps were mediocre. She didn’t connect with the music. She was almost rushing through the program, as if she was counting in her head as to listening to the music.</p><p>She jumps into a double axel- Euler- triple Salchow, obviously trying her best to look effortless through the pain on her hip. It was the side of figure skating people don’t really see. A side that every skater knew all too well.</p><p>The rest of the program goes into a blur.</p><p>Tano Triple Lutz- double loop.</p><p>Rippon Triple Lutz- Triple toe loop into a combination spin.</p><p>The music crescendos and she delves into her step sequence. There was so much to improve. She had great musicality, they just needed to develop it into <em>something</em>.</p><p>She was a beautiful spinner though, so much speed into it. As Yakov had mentioned, Yuuri did see the signs of the loss of her flexibility in her Beillmann.</p><p>She drops onto her knee, holding her clenched hand level to her lowed head, signaling the end of her program. She winces as she moves from her position, placing a hand over it in hopes to relieving the sting.</p><p>Yuuri meets her at the rink’s entrance, letting her lean on him as they walk over to the seats. “Are you okay? That fall looked like a hard one.” The Japanese man helps her settle onto the seat, silently asking one of the skaters for a cold compress.</p><p>“I’m okay! No need to worry. It was just a small fall, nothing more than a bruise I’m sure.” Yuuri frowns, shaking his head. “No, you need to get that checked out. It’s better to be safe than sorry. We wouldn’t want that to seem like something small when it really isn’t. One thing you should all know about me as a coach, I value my skaters’ health more than anything.”</p><p><em>I wouldn’t want any of you to go through what I had to go through.</em> The phrase went unsaid, but everyone in the area heard it loud and clear. Silence followed after, no one really knowing what to say. Hell, even Yuri Plisetsky didn’t know what to say, his silence rivaling Yuuri’s when he’s at any social event ever.</p><p>The silence was broken as Igor dashes into the rink with a baby blue cold compress. “Here! sorry, Liz didn’t remember where she had… why does it feel like someone died in here?” The youngest boy’s thundering footsteps come to a stop, frozen still at the amount of tension in the air.</p><p>Yuuri felt the tension, he wasn’t oblivious (well, sometimes. But he didn’t believe that.). he could already hear the multitude of questions running around their heads. As it always has been since he had retired. There were always questions, questions he didn’t even know the answer to himself.</p><p>Why did you retire? You healed so perfectly! You could have done more in your career.</p><p>Why did he retire? The answer he always answered that question with was a small chuckle with a scratch to the back of his neck. “I thought that it would be better for me to focus on my education. The injury did a number on my body, <em>better safe than sorry, right?”</em></p><p>Yuuri knew better, that was what he was convincing himself to believe.</p><p><em>why </em>did<em> I retire</em>? He asked in his head almost a million times now, and there always this one voice. That one horrible voice that would hiss an answer to him like the snake to Eve.</p><p>
  <em>Because you’re a coward. Don’t you see? You ruined your dream for yourself. That small ambitious boy hoping to make it big? Ha! Not in this world. World Champion? The Olympics? On the same ice as Viktor Nikiforov? Please, you’re a dime-a-dozen skater. You couldn’t even—</em>
</p><p>The words after were awful. So awful Yuuri cried himself to sleep as he begged the hissing voice to stop.</p><p>He shakes off his thoughts and smiles at the boy, holding out his hand to take the compress from him. “Thank you.” He gestures for Katrina to lean on her side. “Where does it hurt?” she points to a spot on her left hip. Funny, huh. It’s always the left side.</p><p>Yuuri ignores the thought, gently applying the compress on her side. “We should get you to the clinic.” The Japanese coach gives his best reassuring smile as the girl’s eyes widen in concern. “It’s a small chance to have broken something with a fall like that. You were able to skate the rest of the program, after all.” He gets up, extending a hand towards the girl.</p><p>“Can you walk?” Katya tries to stand, but winces when she added pressure to her left leg. “I can carry her.” Viktor abruptly states, walking towards where Yuuri was standing. he smiles, moving aside to give Viktor space to get to Katya. “Thank you.”</p><p>“You can all start your warm-ups while we get this checked. Is it okay for you to perform when I get back, Ms. Babicheva?” The redhead nods, moving aside to make way for Yuuri and Viktor.</p><p>The Japanese coach takes one more glance to make sure Katrina is properly rested on Viktor’s back, nodding in approval. “Let’s go?” he starts to walk out of the rink, holding the door open for the two.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <strong>SkatingNews</strong>
</p><p> </p><p>[The picture posted by Team Feltsman of Yuuri and the team, with the words <em>Yuuri Katsuki left Team Cialdini to coach for Team Feltsman. </em>In both English and Russian. The second slide is of a picture of Yuuri in an airport wearing a brown coat and a disposable mask over his face, slightly obscuring the view of the man’s face, but it is clear that it is Yuuri Katsuki.]</p><p>Liked by <strong>Niki.forum </strong>and <strong>others</strong></p><p><strong>SkatingNews</strong> !!! Yuuri Katsuki leaving Team Cialdini to coach for Team Feltsman!!!</p><p>!!! Юри Кацуки покидает команду Чалдини и становится тренером команды Фельцман !!!</p><p>~~</p><p>On Tuesday, July 12 20xx, Team Feltsman’s official Instagram account <strong>@TeamFeltsmanOfficial</strong> posted a group photo of the team with former Rising prince of the ice, Yuuri Katsuki. (Photo shown above.)</p><p>In November 30<sup>th</sup> of 20xx, a day after Katsuki’s 21<sup>st</sup> birthday, Team Cialdini released a statement of welcoming the newly retired skater into their coaching team. Katsuki having just recently passed his coaching eligibility test, immediately joined his former coach’s team.</p><p>No one would have thought of Katsuki leaving his Team, nor has anyone thought of another coach joining Team Feltsman as it has never once had any other full time coaches.</p><p>On Sunday, July 10 20xx, Katsuki has been spotted at an airport in France, possibly to a plane to St. Petersburg, Russia. (second slide above)</p><p>There has been no statement from Team Feltsman, Team Cialdini, and Yuuri Katsuki. But we can’t help but wonder, had the Former Ace of Japan’s relationship with his former coach gone sour? Had he left his Coaching team of seven years for the much bigger Feltsman Empire? What has brought on this sudden switch just before the start of the 20xx-20xx season?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“It’s going to bruise, a really bad one at that, but nothing you haven’t experienced before. Just make sure to ice it.” Yuuri lets out a sigh of relief, taking the ice pack the rink’s doctor offered. “It’s great that you had that get checked, though. It could’ve been worse. We wouldn’t want a replay of Viktor’s foot fracture from four years ago.”</p><p>The silver haired man groans, stuffing his face in his hands. “You really didn’t have to mention that, Dr. Kornikov. <em>Especially in front of Yuuri.</em>” He mutters, the last part so lowly Yuuri couldn’t hear. “Why not? You don’t want him to hear about you <em>‘seeing a performance so beautiful’</em> you didn’t stop to take a break until you slipped and fractured your foot? You’re lucky it was a small fracture.”</p><p>The doctor laughs, loud and full of mirth. Now that caught Yuuri’s attention, a performance that caught Viktor’s attention? He wonders who’s it is. It must be amazing to have caught Viktor’s attention.</p><p>The doctor turns to Yuuri, a small smile still resting on his lips. “Welcome to the Yubileyny arena family, Mr. Katsuki. I’m Sergei Kornikov, the arena’s private doctor. We’re glad to have another person to deal with these nuisances.” Yuuri laughs, shaking the doctor’s offered hand. “Glad to be of service. I hope to get to know you all throughout this season.”</p><p>“Likewise. Though, we already know very much a lot about you, Mr. Katsuki. <em>Some people</em> won’t shut up about you.” Dr. Kornikov shoots the two other Russians an unreadable expression. The Japanese man awkwardly laughs, hands intertwining behind his back. “Good things I hope.”</p><p>“you have no idea.” Mutters the girl, leaving Yuuri puzzled. He decides to leave it, opting to ask the doctor questions regarding Katya’s hip. “Do you think she can train today?” Dr. Kornikov hums, glancing at the girl. “Best leave it for today, it’s going to be sore in a few hours. But you are free to return to the rink. However, it’s best that Katrina goes home for today.”</p><p>She opens her mouth to sound out her disapproval, but closes it like a gaping fish as she is met with a look from the doctor. “Okay.” She begrudgingly says, leaning back onto the headboard. “I’ll get Elizaveta to escort you home. It’s best you get to your other students after I finish up with Katrina, Mr. Katsuki. We would hate for Yurochka to throw a tantrum.”</p><p>“Tantrum?” Yuuri’s puzzled. From what he remembers, Yuri Plisetsky was already fifteen, he had always thought of tantrums as things young children throw. “You saw a glimpse of it earlier. Screaming and complaining is a normal thing for Yura. Don’t worry though, he likes you.” Viktor smiles, placing a hand on the younger man’s shoulder.</p><p>Yuuri’s face heats up, causing him to look away, but doesn’t make any move to remove the hand that used to rest on his waist or shoulders in front of thousands of people. “If liking me means shouting at me on the first meeting, then sure.” He laughs a little, tapping his finger on the top of his hand.</p><p>“but you see, Yura shouting is his way of respect.” This time, Yuuri really laughs, shaking his head. His stance was starting to relax, showing him being comfortable with his former competition. “I don’t think he was being really respectful to Jean Jacques Leroy at last year’s grand prix final banquet.” Viktor laughs, his hand sliding further down Yuuri’s arm. “Now that is a different story. I wasn’t aware of you being at last year’s grand prix, were you coaching a skater?”</p><p>The Japanese man pushes up his glasses, moving away from the man a little as his hand reaches his elbow. “Yes. I was there with Alicia Wang, the junior women’s bronze medalist. I really just went to the banquet to supervise and due to Chris’ badgering, but I suppose I got a front seat to the Plisetsky-Leroy drama.”</p><p>“you’re ready to go, Katrina. Elizaveta should be here in a few minutes. Mr. Katsuki, Viktor, better go ahead to the rink. I’ll keep Katrina company here.” Yuuri turns to the junior skater for confirmation. “I’ll be fine, thank you for bringing me here, Coach Yuuri.” She hesitates before giving Yuuri a bow, unsure if it was proper, but smiles as Yuuri bows back at her.</p><p>“Well, then. If you’re sure. I’ll see you tomorrow for your first session, Katya.” They wave at each other before the two men steps out of the clinic. They walk in silence, Yuuri not really knowing what to say.</p><p>Well, what was he supposed to say? There was a reason he never really got along with the other competitors when he was competing. He was never the type to mingle and the only way he really made friends was through Chris and the Crispinos, who were pretty close to his age range.</p><p>Plus, this was Viktor Nikiforov beside him. He doesn’t know what to talk about with him. Aside from skating, the only thing they have in common was their love of dogs and their shared skate and blade manufacturing company. Despite Yuuri following this man’s career for more than half his life, he doesn’t know much about Viktor Nikiforov’s personal life. Hell, he didn’t even dream of becoming acquaintances with him.</p><p>But there he is, walking beside him. Not a word being shared between them despite their rather pleasant conversation in the clinic.</p><p>He envies Chris for his way of words and his ease of making friends. He remembers the first time they conversed, he was then fourteen and Chris sixteen and the first things the blond had said to him was “Want to ditch this banquet and go to a convenience store or something?”</p><p>Thus began a night of two teenage medalists sneaking out of a fancy banquet, for a competition to which both of them dominated, to eat packaged sandwiches at a nearby 7-eleven in suits and their medals still hanging from their necks glinting in gold and silver. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.</p><p>So someone would say, had they not known about them sneaking out of more banquets than they can count to sneak into clubs when they both passed the age of seventeen, despite them being in different disciplines already. It became worse and more frequent when the Crispino twins joined their little group a year after the first escapade occurred and Phichit when he switched to juniors.</p><p>He shudders at the thought of the night of the world championships the year before when they had all been in one competition, now with Yuuri as a coach, of course.</p><p>Speaking of, he should’ve probably told Sara and Chris about his recent transfer of teams. Before the media could tell them first. Man, Sara’s gonna be whining about him not telling her anything.</p><p>“So why did you choose to switch coaching teams? Not that we aren’t happy to have you here, of course. It’s just that, you have been with coach Cialdini since you were in juniors, no? there’s also the fact that Yakov has never had anyone assisting him before.” Yuuri was surprised as the older man was the first to break the ice. “Were you having problems with the team? I don’t want to assume what the media was saying is true.”</p><p>He furrows his eyebrows. The media? He hadn’t said anything yet, how could the media have known about him transferring?</p><p>“What? No, no. My relationship with my former coaching team is well, I have been with them since I was young. They’re like family to me. It was actually Celestino that recommended I switch for the season after he received the call from Coach Feltsman, saying that he needed one of our coaches. And so, Celestino recommended me to Coach Feltsman.” The young coach tilts his head to look at the skater.</p><p>“What is the media saying? I don’t think I said anything yet.”</p><p>“You didn’t know? The team’s official account already posted a welcome, along with Phichit Chulanont’s post about you not being a part of Team Cialdini anymore. They’re speculating that you had a fallout with the team.”</p><p>No, Yuuri didn’t know any of this.</p><p>He had just unknowingly caused another figure skating fandom issue.</p><p>Whoops.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Yuuri was almost done evaluating with only Yuri Plisetsky left to assess. Viktor and Georgi have left to talk with Yakov about their season arrangement, so he was now alone with a bunch of teenagers that he’s coaching for the season.</p><p>He had gotten a glimpse of what these skaters were capable of.</p><p> Katrina had huge potential with further improving her technique and presentation. Mila was already quite well-rounded, a bit lacking in her presentation, but a rocket in jumping. Igor was a bit average on both sides, but was getting close to perfecting his quads. Alexei was a rounded skater as well, outstanding in both technical and presentation, but lets his nerves get to him a bit too much.</p><p>He had an idea on how he’s going to handle them and how to help them improve on where their lacking, how to help them further develop what they are already good at.</p><p>He was writing on his note pad when he feels a gush of wind hit his face. “Oi, pig. You better be watching me. See how much better I am than all of you has beens, an you will regret giving up so early.”</p><p>The blond teenager goes to take one more slow lap before sliding to the middle of the ice, waiting for the cue to start. Yuuri presses play on his phone, the first slow rings of the music began and he takes two glides forwards. The music was the theme from Schindler’s List, a beautiful music piece in Yuuri’s opinion.</p><p>Though, as beautiful and peaceful the start of the piece was, the young boy looked as though he was fighting the music. He wasn’t connecting with it at all. Don’t get him wrong, Yuuri thought Yuri looked absolutely wonderfully effortless on the ice for his age.</p><p>The choreography was more on the side of the programs meant for the ladies, but with the skater’s figure and flexibility, it looked like it was made for him. He launches into a quad toe-triple toe combination, landing without the smallest wobble.</p><p>It was clear to Yuuri that the young skater was a jumping prodigy, with nice height and distance on his jumps. Though, his arms are a bit stiff as he moves them around, his fingers still a bit spider-looking. His next jumping pass was a triple axel-triple toe loop- double toe loop combo, going straight into the transition to the flying camel spin, his flexibility showing a great deal.</p><p>Yuuri notices that he doesn’t have a lot of speed in the spin, writing it down on the notepad under his fingertips. The step sequence was stiff; it was lackluster in comparison to his jumping ability. Perhaps the ice just wasn’t cooperating with him today, it happens to all of them. Yuuri could see from the furrow of the teen’s eyebrows that he was trying to get his edges deep, to steady the flow of his movements.</p><p>He turns and sweeps his blades flat on the ice, jumping into a quadruple Salchow. Plisetsky was known for his ability to perform two quads in being a junior skater, a quad toe and quad Salchow in his repertoire from the early ages of thirteen.</p><p>To Yuuri’s knowledge, Yakov has yet to allow Yuri to learn anymore quads until his growth spurt, which is probably due soon since he is already fifteen. Now that Yuuri thinks about it, the Russian tiger’s growth spurt is rather late, isn’t it?</p><p>Never mind that, that isn’t what he’s supposed to be observing. Back to the teen’s performance.</p><p>He glides backwards and switches forward to go into his second triple axel in the program. It was clearer now that he was starting to get tired. From the slightly more ragged movement in his skating to the expression on his face.</p><p>It was the start of the second part of the program now, starting with a triple loop. He sticks the landing, performing a bit of footwork before taking his leg up into a beillmann spiral. Going into a triple Salchow.</p><p>Triple lutz- triple toe loop. A bit too much on the outside for comfort.</p><p>Lay back spin, a bit of a loss in speed there, but gains it again as he pulls his leg up into a beillmann.</p><p>It’s in the Choreographic sequence where Yuuri sees the teen getting weaker in the knees. in the layback Ina Bauer, he can see the trembling in his knees.</p><p>Y-spiral into the closing combination spin, rapidly gaining speed in the I-spin.</p><p>He’s panting and struggling to catch his breath when the program comes to a close, placing his hands on his knees to keep himself upright. The program was rather difficult, especially for a fifteen-year-old. Yuuri was barely doing any difficult jumps at his age.</p><p>The blond was now skating to where Yuuri stood behind the barrier, shoving himself a bit too close for comfort to Yuuri. “You see? I’ll be even better than you and the old man. I may have failed in breaking your junior records, but I swear on my skates, I will beat yours and the old man’s records in seniors. You got that?”</p><p>Yuuri was stunned for a few seconds, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape. Yuri’s breath was hitting his face in puffs, his eyes wild and searching.</p><p>Yuuri could see an emotion in those green eyes, unconcealed and out in the open. The teen was vulnerable, almost as if he was seeking Yuuri’s approval.</p><p>Yuuri suspects it’s because of the constant comparison that is made between him and Viktor. The young boy was constantly being compared to Viktor as a child, some even calling him the next Viktor Nikiforov.</p><p>But he isn’t. He’s Yuri. And Yuuri could see that.</p><p>He has a feeling in his chest that he wants to help him be just that.</p><p>Yuuri smiles softly, and nods. “No doubt about that, Plisetsky-kun.” The boy freezes, eyes widening in surprise. The Japanese man pats him on his shoulder before walking towards the rink entrance, taking his blade guards off and sliding onto the ice.</p><p>“Alright, gather around.” Skid to a stop on the ice, shaving the ice with his blades. The skaters rally around, forming a semicircle in front of Yuuri.</p><p>“I’m going to give some of my comments and I’ll supervise you through what your normal training sessions with Coach Feltsman usually is.” The Russians nod, waiting for Yuuri to continue. He flips his notepad to the first page where Katya’s critiquing is written.</p><p> “Katya went home on doctor’s orders so I will just be giving her the critique tomorrow. Ms. Babicheva?” The girl smiles brightly, hopping lightly on her toe picks, raising her hand by her forehead into a salute. “Yes coach!”</p><p>Yuuri smiles at her antics. “Your jumps and spins are beautiful. Textbook. Your flexibility is also superb, could make my old ballet instructor cry, honestly. But we can work on your quad toe and your triple axel. We can also work on your steps. You can improve on so many things, and I’ll try my best to help you every step on the way.”</p><p>“I look forward to it, Coach Katsuki.” She stills, slinging her arm around Yuri’s shoulders, eliciting a yell from the boy.</p><p>“Mr. Tukmachev, I can see your triples are flawless. Doing almost all of them as Tanos and Rippons is impressive. We can work on your step sequence, work on it to a level three. We can work on a quad toe loop, then maybe we’ll work on a that Salchow.”</p><p>Yuuri gives the boy a (hopefully) reassuring smile, letting him know that there wasn’t anything wrong with his skating, but they can improve on a lot of things.</p><p>The world of skating is quickly evolving. Heck, eleven-year-olds are starting on learning jumps that’s way above the usual age range.</p><p>Igor has the potential. He just needs a little push on the right direction.</p><p>“Alexei. Well-rounded. Very capable in all aspects. You have step sequences that make me reminiscent of Paul Wylie's steps. You have the power in your jumps. However, you seem to over think. And when you over think, you fall.” Yuuri sighs, remembering his own clouded thoughts when he was competing.</p><p>“we can work on strengthening your capabilities, but believing in yourself has to be from you. Know that I, many people in fact, believe that you have potential. But you have to believe that yourself.”</p><p>Alexei slowly nods, not exactly knowing on how to respond. “I— Yes coach.” He settles with a determined nod.</p><p>Yuuri readies himself for the ticking time bomb that is Yuri Plisetsky. The boy was incredibly irritable from what Yuuri has seen of him. From the Junior competitions he has been needed at where some of his skaters to the screaming that knocked him out of his Triple axel, Yuri didn’t seem to be the calm silent rational type.</p><p>“Mr. Plisetsky.” Yuuri starts, looking the blond in the eye. “Beautiful jumps, textbook perfect. Two quads at your age, excellent flexibility, wonderful technique. However, your struggle is very clear when the second half of the program begins. You don’t conceal that part very well and your spins easily loses speed.”</p><p>Yuri clenches his jaw and fists, but stays silent and lets Yuuri continue.</p><p>“I think your performances will be absolutely gorgeous if you start learning Rippons and Tanos. You have such long slender arms that it would look like an extension of your body when you jump. You have the technique and skill, It’s up to you if you think this is something you want to do.”</p><p>Yuuri shifts his gaze to all of his students, arms crossing on his chest, trapping the notebook between his chest and arms. “This applies to all of you. If you think there is something you want to try, tell me, and we’ll see what we can do.”</p><p>He straightens up and smiles, his eyes and smile sharper than the shy sweet ones from a few moments ago. “Let’s start. I’m looking forward to training all of you.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Is he looking at us?” Igor skates towards Mila and Alexei who are taking a short water break after some drills. The redhead looks at her new coach, the man intensely looking at his phone like it had offended him in some way.  “No. But it certainly feels like he’s watching our every move, right?”</p><p>“It’s unnerving how he switches from his shy and sweet self from earlier to this incredibly intense one. Did you see how his smile changed before we started? I swear it looked like his teeth sharpened and he was about to eat us alive.” Mila laughs, patting the two boys on their backs hard.</p><p>“You’re over exaggerating. Yuuri wouldn’t do that, right?” as if on cue, there is a loud sound from the direction in which Yuuri is in. “<em>Chris, I swear if you—“</em> He says in <em>French.</em> The three young skaters stare at Yuuri, eyes wide and mouths open. “Man, how many languages does this guy speak?”</p><p>“Well, we know he speaks English, Russian, Japanese, <em>and</em> French. I wouldn’t be surprised if he learned Thai for Phichit.  Crap, that’s terrifying and impressive at the same time.”  Igor stiffs as Yuuri throws them a glance and walks over to them.</p><p>“Go ahead and take a break, I have to take a call outside. Please tell Mr. Plisetsky as well.” He smiles before tapping on something on his phone and hurriedly walking out the rink doors. “That was weird. Do you think that’s normal?” Alexei shrugs, skating towards the exit and sliding his blade guards.</p><p>The youngest teen only huffs, turning to Mila instead. “I’m starting to think he’s a spy or something.” The girl laughs, reaching to ruffle the young boy’s hair. “Oh, Igorek. You are adorable.” She shakes her head before following Alexei to the other side of the barriers. “Hey, I’m serious!”</p><p>“Yura! Get off the ice! We’re on break!”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Chris’ boooOtaY</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong>  </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Crispysara: I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH TREACHERY </em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                    : MY OWN DRUNK POLE DANCING SON, I HAVE BEEN WOUNDED</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Y-Katsuki: What?</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                  : Also, who changed the group name? again?</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Phichit+chu: That would be Chris.</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                      : The name fits tho. </em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Christophe-gc: No one can get enough of these beautiful things.</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                          : Nothing can beat our Yuuri’s ass, though. As much as that saddens me.</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Y-Katsuki: Please stop talking about my ass. </em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                   : My ass is perfectly fine</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Crispino-Mc: You better prepare at the gp, Katsuki</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>                      : You had me get an earful of Sara’s screeching and I’d like to return the favor. </em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong> <em>Y-Katsuki: huh? What did I do?</em> </strong>
  </p>
  <p>
    <strong>  </strong>
  </p>
</blockquote><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Call from: Chris’ boooOtaY</em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong> <em>Decline                            Accept </em> </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>  </strong>
</p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my god, do you guys need something? I’m kind of in the middle of assessing my new skaters.” Yuuri says with a half exasperated half playful lilt in his voice as the screen fills with the all too familiar faces of Christophe Giacometti, Phichit Chulanont, and Sara Crispino.</p><p><em>“Uh, yeah? You didn’t think to tell us that you, Oh I don’t know, flew to Russia to coach Yakov Feltsman’s students?!”</em> Sara shrieks, making Michele very visibly flinch in the background. Chris tuts, shaking his head with every tsk. <em>“We had to find out from Phichit’s Instagram post? I thought we were closer that that, mon chéri.”</em></p><p>“Um, surprise?” Michele laughs, skating closer to where Sara was by the barriers. <em>“You messed up, Katsuki. You’ll never hear the end of Sara’s complaining about you coaching her biggest competition.”</em></p><p>Yuuri groans, going to sit on a lounge chair. “It just slipped my mind. And Sara, don’t pretend like I didn’t mention the Russia thing in the last time you called for help in your Short.” Sara smiles, straightening up when Mickey gives her a blank look. <em>“It just slipped my mind?”</em></p><p>Yuuri rolls his eyes, but laughs along with the others. <em>“It’ been a while, no? There’s still four months until the season starts so it’s still going to be a while until we’re all in the same place.”</em> The Swiss skater says with a small smirk gracing his lips. <em>“You know what happens when we’re in the same place.”</em></p><p><em>“Drunk Yuuri!”</em> The Italian girl cheers while her brother has a disgruntled look on his face. <em>“Drunk Yuuri is passed out Yuuri. And passed out Yuuri isn’t exactly fun to carry.”</em> Phichit laughs, smiling as he takes a screenshot. <em>“Drunk Yuuri is also blacked out-doesn't remember in the morning Yuuri. Hey remember when—“</em></p><p>Yuuri groans, hanging his head low. “I don’t want to know what drunk me does. All I know is that you people give me a challenge, I take it.” Chris grins widely and pushes his curls out of his face. <em>“Shame. You would want to remember the NHK Trophy banquet when you turned twenty. The year you were finally legal in Japan!”</em></p><p>The young coach cringes, he never wanted to remember what happens when he gets drunk. He had pretty good tolerance, but his friends sure know how to <em>push it.</em></p><p>They made a pact that whatever happens when drunk Yuuri makes a dazzling appearance, Normal, sober Yuuri doesn’t need to know anything about it. But that doesn’t mean Yuuri escapes the teasing.</p><p>“I don’t know why I hang out with you monsters.”</p><p>
  <em>“you love us, mon amour. Just admit it.”</em>
</p><p>Yep, Yuuri really does.</p><p>Geez.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Yuuri drops on the ice, sweaty and panting from his jump drills he, for some reason, still makes himself do even after three years of retirement.<br/><br/>Seriously, why does he do it to himself? Toe loop, loop, salchow, flip, lutz, axel. Singles, doubles, triples, quads. Well, a selected few on the quads. He couldn’t do the loop, flip and lutz without supervision. And an axel would be rather history breaking.</p><p>He slowly gets up, groaning at the feeling of his aching, burning thighs. While Yuuri is still in competition form, and his stamina is still something most athletes could only dream of, his body is still less capable than it was three years ago.<br/><br/>It was already 1:23 pm and he has a novice class assigned in 1:30. Katya was sent home on doctor’s orders and Igor is in an off ice dance class. Mila was in ballet with Yuri and Alexei had gone to help Liz in the cafeteria, so Yuuri just had to supervise for Viktor while Yakov was on leave for the day after the class.</p><p>Yuuri slides to the barriers and cleans his blades before downing the water bottle halfway in one swig. His shirt was soaked, making the cold air even colder. Well, it was nothing new. He winces, as much as he loved the ice, he wouldn’t have survived if he had stayed at the rink for 7 hours straight three years ago.</p><p>He was still had a few minutes until the class arrived, he could probably think of something for choreography. It was already June and the junior season starts at august. Yakov did say Yuuri would be making the choreography.<br/><br/>He still had to talk with the siblings about what they want. He wasn’t the one skating, after all.<br/><br/>The young coach rests his hands on his waist, waiting for the cue of the music. He lets it play, skating around until he heard the cue for a camel spin. He goes into the spin, his body parallel to the ice. Going into the triple axel, he loses himself in the music as soon as he starts the step sequence.</p><p>The edges of his blades tear through the ice, leaving indents of swirling lines across the cool white surface.<br/><br/>This step sequence was something he had been tinkering with for a while. He had been warming up one morning between classes in Detroit when this song had been next in his playlist, he improvised a routine as he was listening to the music. it was from a playlist Phichit had made for him.<br/><br/><em>“You have to refresh your music taste once and a while, Yuuri!”</em> So he said. He did get to make a routine out of one of the songs, so he kinda thanks Phichit for that.</p><p>He steps out of the sequence, opting to get ready for the class instead. He pushes his hair back, running his hands down his face to wipe off the sweat off. The man heaves a sigh, stretching his hands above his head.</p><p>The novice skaters should be arriving any minute now.</p><p>
  <em>Any minute now.</em>
</p><p>Now, despite being a coach in Detroit for a few years and helping around with coaching the younger skaters when he was still competing, Yuuri never had a great connection with kids. He always had a shaky start with children, him being the type to be more calm and reserved and kids being, well, <em>kids.</em></p><p>Heck, his first time meeting and helping the coaching team in Detroit when he was nineteen was a mess. He started to criticize 8-10 year-olds skating as if they were skaters competing in higher levels. Safe to say that the younger skaters didn’t warm up to Yuuri until about a month or two later.</p><p>The only other interaction he had with kids were with his nieces when Yuuko calls. The three identical girls were… energetic.</p><p>That didn’t mean Yuuri doesn’t <em>like</em> kids. He thought they were rather adorable and hilarious with their non-existing brain to mouth filter.</p><p>Regardless of his first encounters with dealing with children, Yuuri like to think he’s improved on it. Somewhat.</p><p>The rink door opens to reveal a woman with blond hair. She was definitely not a novice skater.</p><p>She comes in, not noticing Yuuri yet. The woman, Yuuri noticed, was holding a suitcase with a young boy trailing after her. <em>Ah, one of the novices perhaps.</em></p><p>“тетушка, Can I have my phone back now?” The young boy whines, tugging on the woman’s long sleeve shirt. The woman sighs heavily before crouching in front of the child. “Dima, your mother told me you aren’t to have your devices at practice. Go stretch and get ready to meet your new coach.”</p><p>“New coach?” The boy perks, momentarily stopping the tugging on the woman’s shirt. She shrugs, placing the suitcase on a spot. “Some big shot skater turned coach. Coached a few skaters to Junior international medals or something.” She lays the mat on the floor and gestures the boy to stretch on it.</p><p>“Are they nice?” He asks as he start to stretch from head to toe. “I don’t know, Dimochka.” She turns to get a few items from the bag, facing the ice rink and finally catching sight of the young Japanese coach. She squints, suspicion covering her features.</p><p>“Who are you? I was informed that this is a private training session. Not just any skater can be here, I’m sure as hell you are not one of my nephew’s teammates.” She scowls, shouting from the other side of the rink from Yuuri. He freezes, the area suddenly feeling colder than it actually is. “Oh my god, you can’t speak Russian, can you?” She groans, glancing momentarily at the ceiling. “Look. You are not allowed to be here, okay?” She replies with heavily accented English.</p><p>Yuuri shakes his head, skating over to where the two other human beings were on the other side of the barriers. “No, no. I speak Russian quite well. I’m the new coach.” He clarifies. The woman squints, a flash of recognition in her eyes. “Do I know you from somewhere?”</p><p>“I don’t think so…? I just moved here.” Yuuri grows uncomfortable as she leans more into his personal space. “No… I definitely seen you before.”</p><p>“He’s Yuuri Katsuki from Japan, Тетушка. Mama always watch his performances. Coach used to use his videos for examples of spins and steps.” </p><p>“Ah!” She moves back, making Yuuri relax in relief. “This is Dima, one of your students. I’m Daria, his aunt.” Yuuri smiles, nodding to the aunt and nephew. “I’m Yuuri, but I guess that’s already been said. I’m replacing Coach Feltsman for this season.” She smirks looking over Yuuri’s lithe figure.</p><p>“you are quite fluent in Russian. Quite handsome, as well. You say you are here for the season, yes?” Yuuri stiffs, feeling a bit uncomfortable. “Ah, well. I started learning it when I was young and took a few classes in college. And, yes, I’m here for the season while Coach Feltsman is on sabbatical.”</p><p>Daria’s smirk widens, resting her hand on her hip. “I’ll be seeing you more often then…” Her eyes flick over to her phone clutched in her hand. “Looks like I have to go. Dima your phone is in the front pocket of your bag. I’ll see you later, <em>Yuuri</em>.”</p><p>The woman exits the rink with one last flirty smile at Yuuri and a flying kiss at Dima. “She’s… something.” Yuuri states, lightly chuckling. The boy only shrugs, easing himself into his splits.</p><p>Okay… The kid was obviously not comfortable with starting a conversation with Yuuri. Well, he can’t exactly blame the kid, Yuuri wasn’t exactly a social butterfly throughout his years. After all, he only had a few friends in Hasetsu and only really started to gain new ones after the banquet incident with Chris.</p><p>So to say, his friendship game wasn’t exactly the best.</p><p>It wasn’t suffering either! He’s just… not that good at it.</p><p>Yuuri should try again. He has to at least <em>try</em> to talk to Dima. They’re stuck with each other for a season, after all.</p><p>“So. How… old are you?” Yuuri internally face palms. He could’ve asked a better question or just asked the question like a normal person without the long pauses. “I just turned ten.” The boy shortly answers, looking up to give Yuuri his attention.</p><p>Okay, now what can he say? What do ten year olds like these days?</p><p>Now Yuuri is starting to see why Phichit told him he sounded old.</p><p>“will you be helping me with my double Lutz?” He asks, easing out of his splits and into a cross legged seating position. The coach grins, leaning his forearms on the barrier. “I’ll be helping you with things other than the Lutz too. The other jumps, your spins, your steps, your edges, etc.”</p><p>Dima smiles, leaning over to take something from his open suitcase. He holds his black skates with their we bare bears panda soft guards. “I’d like that. I like skating.” Yuuri’s smile widens, taking in the younger male’s genuine interest and excitement.</p><p>“Me too, Dima. Me too.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Yuri was exhausted. Yuri was not amused. And Yuri is walking back to the rink after a long day of unpleasant surprises (sure, let’s pretend he didn’t internally scream and curse about taking down the three, four—<em>ten </em>magazine clippings of a costume clad Yuuri.) because he left his personal bag in the rink.</p><p>It’s pretty late. Late enough that he hears Viktor watching his over dramatic soap opera and Georgi whining while Anya screams at him. Yuri wouldn’t even have left his bag if it weren’t for his desperate need to get to his apartment to avoid Igor’s insisting on playing animal crossing, only realizing the lack the small pouch when he searches for his portable charger.</p><p>So then he went to get the keys from Yakov and went on his adventure to the rink in the chilling St. Petersburg night.</p><p>“Fucking Igor and his dumb sleep depriving game.” He mumbles under his breath, puffs of white from the cold following the wake of his warm breath.</p><p>The rink was relatively empty and quiet when he arrived, not that he really expected anyone to be at the rink this late. The sports palace was dark, the clacking of his shoes and the faint sounds of classical music the only sounds that echo across the walls— wait, faint sounds of classical music?</p><p>Yuri faintly remembers the piece to be one from Chopin. One of the pieces Yakov kept shoving down his throat to use for his program music.</p><p>He follows the sound to the rink, where he was going to in the first place. His footsteps gradually increasing in speed as the soft music builds. He enters the arena as quietly as possible, careful to not make any sound.</p><p>There in the middle of the ice was a figure mid quad Salchow, high in the air like gravity didn’t apply to him. It was an image still so painfully familiar, a figure he watched improve and get stronger as years went by.</p><p>He was careful in walking towards the small tiger printed pouch, so very careful to stay out of view as the man on the ice draws lines on the ice, getting into dizzying spins that almost blurs at its speed. The sounds of the piano slows and The skaters turns and launches into his signature textbook perfect Rippon triple axel.</p><p>Yuri hold his breath when the man skates towards his phone, slicking his hair back with the sweat on his forehead.</p><p>The routine must be new. Yuri could still see the experimental movements and more jagged transitions into different spins in combos, he could still see the rather shallow edges and lack of emotion in the skating. It was clearly still being worked on.</p><p>But Chulanont has been rumored to use the sound track from The king and the whatever, this was clearly a routine for the men’s discipline as it was more jump heavy, so it wasn’t for any of the two skaters Yuuri normally choreographs for. And while the Japanese man choreographed for himself later in his competitive career, he wasn’t competing anymore. So who was this routine to be performed?</p><p>The skater on the ice taps on the screen, making the Chopin piece abruptly stop. He skates to the center and holds a very familiar opening pose. With that Yuri takes his phone, open the camera app and hits <em>record.</em></p><p>Yeah, yeah. It was a breach of privacy, but there was this nagging feeling in Yuri’s mind that tells him to press that button. Even before the familiar strikes of the music hits, Yuri already knew what this routine was, the quad Lutz ratifying routine, the routine that ended the man on the ice’s career.</p><p>Well it wasn’t the routine, but the injuries sustained while he performed the routine.</p><p>He goes through the motions. Flying sit spin, Rippon triple Lutz- triple toe, Rippon Quad Toe loop, Triple axel- single loop- Tano triple Salchow, Spin combo, Quad Salchow, Choreographic sequence.</p><p>His movements, his <em>skating</em> was smoother and better than it was three years ago. Three years ago when people thought his career was only starting.</p><p>There was no doubt, had Yuuri still been competing today, Viktor would have been pushed to second and Yuri given the most difficult time.</p><p>He changes the Quad Salchow into a Quad Toe- Triple toe loop combination. Rippon triple loop- Rippon double toe loop. Well, people didn’t call him the Rippon King after Adam himself for nothing.</p><p>A beautiful effortless looking Y- spiral. It was already going towards the backwards glide that the teen knows so much for bettering his own jump. Textbook quad Lutz, with even better distance and height than it had before.</p><p>A few steps and a triple axel to the spins to end the routine. Yuri knew that was to happen, he watched this routine a million time already, except Yuuri cuts the steps short opting to go into the glide before the axel earlier, rapidly gaining speed, more than what was needed for the triple axel.</p><p>“the fuck?” The Russian whispers under his breath, about to yell towards the man that he had too much speed and he was going to fall on his ass after over-rotating the jump.</p><p>Just as he inhales a large amount of air to prepare for screaming his lungs out, but it dies in his throat as the skater gets into a position to jump the axel. One, two, three, <em>four</em> and a half rotations, rotating so fast Yuri almost couldn’t count them.</p><p>He wasn’t sure is he was still breathing, He wasn’t sure if the phone caught the jump, but he was <em>sure</em> Yuuri Katsuki just performed the <em>impossible jump.</em> A jump no one has even attempted due to it being a danger for its difficulty. A retired skater, <em>a coach</em> just did the quad axel like it was nothing.</p><p>Yuri stops the recording as Yuuri bends himself in half into a beillmann spin, the spin slowing and the man kneeling with both hands raised towards the ceiling.</p><p>Even though the image of the retired Japanese skater was breathtaking, Yuri did the only thing that made sense to him in the moment.</p><p>He slowly walks towards the exit, slams the doors open eliciting a surprised yelp from the man on the ice, slams the doors closed, and he <em>runs</em>.</p><p>He runs and runs towards the apartment complex where he could check the footage, where he could curl up into a ball with a lapful of Potya.</p><p>He intakes a gulp of air and yells into the night.</p><p>“WHAT. THE. FUCK.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>OMG HELLO. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!<br/>The past week has been crazy omg. Especially the Rusnats and the Jnats in Christmas, I was QUAKING.<br/>I just finished Avatar too, 10/10 recommend btw. </p><p>OH and i post updates on my tumblr which i made as an online diary to which i hope none of the people i know personally will ever know about. <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mochinsane">brain rot central</a></p><p>Also i can just imagine Yuri staggering into his room and falling onto his cat and just screams.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Just us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Ah, he’s overthinking it. At this point he isn’t gonna get some sleep if this keeps up.</p><p>He glances to the side where his alarm clock sat on his bedside table, 9:13 pm blinking in a dark colored font.</p><p>Going to the rink always calmed him down before, plus he could start working on the Junior’s programs as they already sent him their music selections hours earlier.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3ZeMXzCRfw">Alexandra Trusova- Big Spender, Jumpin' Jack SP</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWTSpgJTQWg&amp;t=2s">Alexandra Trusova- The four seasons: summer LP</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne-8O-WkSEs">Yuma Kagiyama- Let the good times roll SP</a>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK40WxI6IJg">Yuma Kagiyama- Tucker sountrack LP</a>
</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yuuri warily watches the unassuming skaters currently occupying the ice. It’s been a few days since he arrived in Russia. A few days since his first night session at the rink where someone had seen him working on programs and going through some of his old competition programs.</p><p>Normally, Yuuri wouldn’t mind an audience. However, he was getting acquainted with the rink and was trying out things he had specifically told he needed supervision in doing. </p><p>He didn’t even know who had seen him practicing, he had no way of knowing too. Unless, of course, he asks the skaters directly and that’s not going to happen anytime soon. He had to admit that it was careless of him to be doing difficult elements without a person nearby to tend to him had there been an emergency, or not having a person nearby in general. Also, he could’ve locked the door to make sure no one would see him practicing.</p><p>In his defense, everyone had already gone home. He hadn’t expected anyone to be at the arena at 10 pm.</p><p>It seems though that the mystery spectator had not told anyone about his little endeavor.</p><p>To be honest, Yuuri doesn’t even remember much from his session. He performed a few programs here and there, tested the Chopin program a bit. He does remember doing some of his more difficult jumps. A few quads he certainly wasn’t allowed to do alone; a few quads he wasn’t supposed to do <em>at all.</em></p><p>Yuuri had been working on a certain quad that needed four and a half revolutions in the air with a forward take off, but he barely does it due to the stress it causes in his knee. There’s also the fact that no one knows he’s been working on it, nor has anyone heard Yuuri breath a word about a quad axel.</p><p>But he was 50% sure he had done the jump in one of his programs that night. He was also 50% sure he had done a Lutz and a flip sometime in the night.</p><p>It could have been the janitor or one of the other coaches from the other coaching teams that were hanging back, but Yuuri was fairly sure he had assured the janitor that he could lock up after his session and he hadn’t seen any of the coaches after 8:00 at closing time.</p><p>Yuuri could technically do whatever he wants since he’s no longer a skater but a coach, but it was stressed that they needed to be a role model to the skaters under them and the Japanese coach doesn’t think doing prohibited jumps is a role model thing to do.</p><p>He catches Yuri looking at him with a small scowl on his features. The young coach beckons him over, putting his laptop aside to fully give his student his attention as the blond skates over to where he was. “Yuri? Do you have something on your mind? Do you have something you want to try?”</p><p>Yuri gives him a contemplative look, sighing after a few minutes and looks the older male in the eyes. “Why did you retire? You could have had more than the silvers and occasional gold. It just doesn’t make sense to me. We saw you perform like you never had an injury, why would you throw away something you work on for all your life?”</p><p>Yuuri opens his mouth, about to say what he always says. But something in him not to as he looks into the blond teen’s eyes, a sea of emotions swirling in them. He sighs, looking at the ice instead Yuri. “How about we talk about this later. You can join me while I practice after your classes. You can ask me anything you want.”</p><p>Yuri sighs and scoffs, hands curling into fists on his sides. “Fine. But you better not be wasting my time, pig.” He skates away leaving Yuuri to his devices.</p><p>The young coach flits his gaze to Igor as the young boy lets out a yelp of pain from falling on his triple axel.</p><p>“Are you okay?” The boy looks up to see his coach sporting a concerned look and nods his head. “I’m fine! I caught my fall just in time.”</p><p>“Try that jump again, tighten your form a bit. Make sure your free leg is all the way out. You’ve been falling on that since this morning.” The boy nods, skating around the rink to gain momentum while making sure he doesn’t crash with any one of his rink mates.</p><p>He turns forwards, grazing his toe pick on the ice and launching himself into a triple axel. He lands with a slight wobble, but it was fully rotated, he didn’t touch down, and didn’t fall.</p><p>Yuuri smiles, giving Igor a smile of approval. He moves his gaze again, only to meet the calculating green eyes of Yuri Plisetsky.</p><p>The Japanese man quickly turns his gaze to Mila, who was currently doing her step sequence. He can still feel the eyes burning into the side of his head.</p><p>It will be a long day.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Yura!” Yuri grunts in annoyance, not looking up from his game on his Nintendo switch. Footsteps approach his table in the breakroom in heavy taps on the hardwood floor.</p><p>He already knows who’s the footsteps are, having analyzed the rhythm of each of his pesky rink-mates’ footsteps so he can escape whenever he hears them. The console was suddenly taken from his hands and an arm slinging itself around his shoulders.</p><p>“What are you doing here alone? You know you can invite us to join you for lunch! You don’t have to be so shy” The older skater coos, taking her read hair out of its ponytail. “I didn’t invite you because I didn’t want you people here. Give me back my switch, old hag!”</p><p>Chairs drag along the floor, creating a rather unpleasant sound to Yuri’s ears. He finally looks up to more of his rink mates holding lunch trays. “Why the fuck are you all here?” The blond teen scowls at his rink mates, only receiving a small laugh from them. “Oh, Yura! Stop acting like you want to be alone all the time!” The annoying old man, Viktor, sets his ass down on the seat across from him.</p><p>“I’d rather fall on my Salchow than sit with your annoying whining.” The silver-haired Russian laughs, shrugging off Yuri’s hostile tone. “I think it’s cute.” Katya sticks out her tongue at Yuri, plopping down beside him. “Three years of his whiny pining isn’t cute.”</p><p>Georgi laughs, taking Yuri’s Switch from Mila’s hands. “What are you playing?” Yuri lets out an annoyed sound, slapping away Mila’s arms to grab for his switch from Georgi’s hands. “None of your business, drama queen.”</p><p>“This would have been the best opportunity to get to know Coach Yuuri! Where is he anyways? Why isn’t he having lunch with us?” Mila leans over the table, crossing her arms over the table. “He’s in the dance studio working with Lilia and her ballet students. I actually wonder how he gets along with Lilia. She is rather strict.” Igor munches on his sandwich with his mouth open. Disgusting.</p><p>“So. What do you think of your new coach? Is he any good at coaching?” Georgi inquires, taking an apple slice from Katya’s tray.</p><p>What does Yuri think of new pig of a coach? For starters, he’s annoying. He’s a pushover. He’s— ugh!</p><p>Igor hums, snapping a baby carrot with his teeth. “He’s okay, I guess. It’s been what? Three days since we started working with him. I hardly think that’s enough time to judge him off of.” His sister nods in agreement. “It’s too early to really tell how we work with him, but he does pick out even the smallest mistakes. I’ve been landing more consistently on my Tri axel.”</p><p>“He’s got to be a good coach to be in the Cialdini group. He has coached multiple junior international skaters to the podium, as well as that Thai skater that was climbing up the charts last year, he was so close to getting in the final.” Mila adds. It looks like Yuri isn’t the only one keeping tags on the Japanese ace after retirement.</p><p>“It’s also a bonus that he’s a cute one with cute friends. I’d love going to training if it’s those thighs that greets us every morning.” The red-head wiggles her eyebrows, her statement making Viktor nod enthusiastically.</p><p>Yuri scowls. These imbeciles just don’t get it, don’t they? “He shouldn’t be here. Hell, He shouldn’t even be coaching!” The other Russian skaters were taken aback by Yuri’s outburst. “We all know you don’t necessarily like him as a coach Yura… But wasn’t that a little bit too much?”</p><p>Yuri scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “He should be competing. He’s twenty-three! He should be competing so I can see his face when I beat both him and the old man.”</p><p><em>He should be competing cause he’s too good. He should be competing because he gave up too early. He should be competing. </em>Is what Yuri doesn’t say.</p><p>“Even if he were to come back to competing, I hardly think he’s really in competition form anymore. I mean, three years post retirement? Let’s be real.” Yuri almost laughed in Katya’s face. Three years post retirement? Not in competitive form? Please, he’s better than he was when he was competing!</p><p>Hell, with all those jumps in his roster and with his ever majestic step sequences and dizzying spins that somehow got even more better, he could raise the bar in figure skating so high. Especially with that quad axel he had been hiding…</p><p>Yuri considers showing the others the video, his hand instinctively going down to grip his phone.</p><p>Should he? It would practically be a crime to leave it unnoticed, never meeting the eye of someone who wasn’t the Japanese coach and Yuri himself.</p><p>But… wouldn’t that be a breach of privacy?</p><p>He gripped his phone harder, his face showing his hard thinking and contemplation.</p><p>It’s Igor who notices the Russian Tiger’s concentrated expression and snorts, pointing and wiggling his index finger at Yuri’s face. “Ha! You look constipated!” Yuri snaps out of his reverie, scowling and slapping the offending finger away. “Shut up. And he’s more than in competitive form.”</p><p>“And how would you know that? we barely see him do anything besides telling us what to improve and what to do.” Yuri freezes, not knowing what to say. The team hasn’t actually seen Yuuri skate. The only time they’ve actually seen him on the ice doing jumps and stuff was when they walked in on him practicing the day they were told that he was going to be their coach.</p><p>To them, Yuuri has only been conditioning himself to stay fit, not train like a competing athlete. All they saw was Yuuri about to do a triple axel and falling on the ice.</p><p>But that wasn’t what Yuri saw, no. What he saw was a skater who never quite gave up the ice even through his years of retirement. He kept up his training regime, improved on his technique, achieved other-worldly artistry.</p><p>“I saw—“ The blond pauses, immediately shutting himself up as a certain dark haired man enters the room. His rink mates, having not seen the man enter the room yet stare at him, clearly intrigued. “Nothing.”</p><p>“What? You can’t just say you saw something and then say nothing! What did you see for you to say Coach Yuuri is more than in competitive form?” Katya whines, almost putting the whole of her weight on the table from leaning on the surface. “What about me?”</p><p>The group quickly whip their heads towards the new arrival, the Coach eying the skaters with suspicion. “Yuuri!” Viktor greets, his lips forming a heart. Huh, That’s not a smile you see every day. Yuri had gotten so used to seeing the Russian living legend’s perfect press smile that he forgot he even had that smile.</p><p>“Hello, Viktor. Everyone.” He smiles slightly, stance still a bit unsure. “How was practice with Lilia? This is the first time you’ve met, right?” Alexei asks, looking a bit scared for Yuuri’s answer.</p><p>Well, he had a reason to look scared. Lilia had never been the funnest person to meet. The first time Yura had met the woman he had been put into multiple ballet position and was a bit offended at her pointing out all his imperfections in his positions. That woman was terrifying.</p><p>Yuuri’s smile widens, a spark shining in his eyes. “Yes! it was an honor to meet her! I loved her dancing from what I saw of Minako-sensei’s tapes. It was an amazing experience. She pointed out where I needed to improve. I get why Minako-sensei idolized her so much.”</p><p>Well that was a twist. Lilia normally drove the people she met through ballet to tears with her harsh critiques and her comments coated in distaste. Yuuri, who had just met the ballet teacher a few mere hours ago, seemed to be glowing with glee and admiration.</p><p>It wasn’t a secret that Yuuri was a likable person, albeit a bit shy and awkward that makes people who have never met him before think he’s snobbish and rude. Everyone likes Yuuri, even the old Russian coach likes the former skater (“<em>Had he been a skater until now, I would have traded every one of you imbeciles for him.”</em>), but Lilia was an entirely different story.</p><p>“My, where are our manners. Come Yuuri, have lunch with us!” The annoying old man says oh so brightly it makes Yuri want to puke.</p><p>The Japanese coach’s eyes widen at Viktor’s invitation, lips going slightly agape. “Uh, sure! Okay, um. Let me just, get my lunch first?” he smiles hesitantly, clumsily going over to Liza to get his food. Yuri scowls, as he turns his attention back to Viktor. “Wipe that stupid lovesick puppy look on your face, Old man. You’ve talked to the guy like, what? Five times?”</p><p>Viktor gives him a mock offended look, bringing a hand to his chest. “Excuse you, we’ve talked a lot more than five times!” Igor snorts, covering his mouth with a gloved hand. “Besides the obligatory congratulations?”</p><p>“Well, no… But we will have many more now that he’s in our rink!”</p><p>“Lovesick Vitya aside, what did you see that makes you think Coach Yuuri is still in competitive shape? So tell us! What did coach Yuuri do?” Katya leans in with curiosity shining in her eyes.</p><p>“What did I do?” The Russians freeze as a dark haired man sits himself on the open spot between Georgi and Alexei. Shit. They forgot Yuuri spoke and understood Russian. “We were asking—“</p><p>“About how your meeting with Lilia go. Come on. Tell us what happened.” Mila interrupts as she felt Yuri stiffen beside her. “Oh. It went well I would say.” Yuuri starts to dig into his lunch, starting with his healthy looking salad bowl.</p><p>“Tell us about it!” Katya excitedly asks, already forgetting the matter before. The Japanese coach smiles in amusement at her antics. “Maybe another time. Junior assignments are coming up, right?” The junior skaters in the table nods, stopping what they’re doing to fully focus on Yuuri.</p><p>They aren’t the only ones fully focused on the Coach. Yuri swears there’s barf in his mouth when he took a glance at a certain old practically balding man.</p><p>“Do you already have programs planned for this season?” Yuuri asks, shifting his gaze from Katya to Igor. “We were just planning to reuse last season’s programs since Daniil is on a one year leave.” Igor supplies, shrugging nonchalantly as if not having a new program didn’t upset him in some way.</p><p>It’s a lie. It’s one big fat lie. Igor was sulking for the most part of the day when he found out he’d be using recycled programs for his last season in juniors. The brat. Yuri would trade his glitzy classical program for Igor’s fast paced pop program any day.</p><p>“I have been wanting to consult you both about having me choreograph your programs this season. You can choose the music and give suggestions on what elements you may want to put in it. That is, of course, if you would wish for me to choreograph your programs. I completely understand if you don’t though.” Katya was practically vibrating with excitement.</p><p>“Oh my god... you’re being real right now, right?” She asks, her eyes wide in disbelief. The Japanese man furrows his eyebrows. “... yes? Why wouldn’t I be?”</p><p>Georgi laughs and reaches over to ruffle Katya’s hair, making the girl swat his hand away and grimace. “Katnechka here has been gushing over your choreography since she was the first program you choreographed for Sara and Alicia.” The young girl nods enthusiastically. “I loved Alicia’s Moulin rouge short program from last year, as well as Sara’s exogenesis, oh oh oh! And—“</p><p>“Alright Katya, we get it.” The entire table laughs in amusement at Katya’s enthusiasm. “So I suppose you’re not against it, Katya. Igor?” The coach smiles warmly at Igor when he nods with a small grin. “Katya isn’t the only one who likes your choreo.”</p><p>Yuuri chuckles awkwardly. “I’m honored you like my choreography.”</p><p>“You said we can pick the music right?” Igor’s smile widens, a mischievous glint shining in his eyes. “With limitations, but yes.”</p><p>“Nice.”</p><p>“You’re making them new programs but not us too, Coach Yuuri? We’re your students now too.” Mila teases, but it had the opposite effect on Yuuri than what Mila wanted. Yuuri’s smile drops, frantically assuring Mila. “Ah, of course. I was planning to discuss it with you after I discussed it with Katrina and Igor since the Junior season starts earlier than seniors. I intended to make new programs for all three of you. You can refuse, of course.”</p><p>Yeah, no. Yuri wasn’t about to let The old man off the hook from his promise to choreograph a program for his senior debut just because some other esteemed choreographer offered. No. absolutely the fuck not.</p><p>“I’ll pass. This old man still his to fulfil his promise.” He points as Viktor. The older man’s face morphs into one of question. It pisses Yuri off. “eh?”</p><p>“…you do remember… right?” Yuri demands, feeling rage build up inside him. “Yura! You know how bad my memory is.” He flashes his heart shaped smile. “What the fu—“</p><p>“How about this. I’ll choreograph your short and Yuuri here can do your free! You’ll definitely have gold winning programs with both our choreography, right Yuuri?” Viktor smiles brightly towards Yuuri’s direction. God, Yuri could literally see the hearts in his eyes. Disgusting.</p><p>“O-of course! I have no doubt about Your ability to choreograph a winning program nor do I doubt Mr. Plisetsky’s ability to win with the program you choreograph, M- Viktor.” Yuuri does nothing else but smile hesitantly at the older man, who pouts slightly at Yuuri’s short answer.</p><p>Yuuri looks to his phone as it turns on, a notification bubble blaring on his phone screen. He takes in in his hand to read the text more clearly, squinting a bit before lowering his phone’s brightness. “Ah. Looks like my lunch break is over. Alexei, Yuri, Mila, Katya, and Igor I’ll see you in your second on ice session. Viktor and Georgi, Coach Yakov told me to tell you to go to the gym for off-ice training. Thank you for inviting me for lunch!” The man walks away from the table placing his tray on the countertop above the other used trays before walking out of the room.</p><p>“That’s weird. It’s only 12:30” Katya mumbles, not bothering to cover the tone of disappointment in her voice. “He’s a new, Katya. He probably has to do a lot of things right now. You know, adjusting and scheduling and all.” Alexei tries to reason with her, but only gets an annoyed sound in return.</p><p>“We didn’t even get to ask him about himself! I wanna know his secret to jumping almost all the jumps with Rippons and difficult combos. I wanna know where he grew up! I want to visit Japan and Coach Yuuri’s home town!” She huffs, slumping back into her chair.</p><p>“He grew up in Hasetsu.” Viktor happily supplies, taking an apple slice and plopping it casually into his mouth. Yuri’s face turns in disgust at Viktor’s oozing of lovey doveyness.</p><p>Katya gives him a weird look before straightening up. “look, the point is, we don’t really know much about him and he’s supposed to be our coach for a season. Shouldn’t we know stuff about the person who’s helping us with our careers basically? Not just the things we see on Wikipedia and Phichit’s Instagram.”</p><p>“Well, she has a point.” The red haired skater agrees, shrugging slightly. “we still have time to do that for the season and the season hasn’t even started yet. Don’t worry about it, Katya.”</p><p>The younger girl huffs, giving Mila a small smile. “I guess.”</p><p>“now come on, we should finish this before OUR lunch time ends.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He’s on the run.</p><p>Yep Yuuri’s on the run.</p><p>It hasn’t even been a week since he’s been in Russia and he’s late for his student’s on ice training session.</p><p>He had just been at the gym looking over some of the gym scheduling per coaching unit so he knew when the Feltsman skaters are to be at the gym or the studio, when he had lost track of time after marveling at all the shiny gym equipment. </p><p>He bursts through the doors, hunching over to catch his breath as the doors close behind him. “I am so— Sorry for being late.” He says between breaths, placing his bag and skates on the ground beside the stands. The students skate closer to Yuuri with concerned/amused expressions.</p><p>“Don’t worry about it. We hadn’t been here long and were just starting to warm up.” Yuuri holds back a sigh of relief. He was still late, but it’s good that his students didn’t mind. But that doesn’t mean that he can be late and get away with it of course.</p><p>“Please, continue on warming up. I’ll be with you on the ice shortly.” The skaters nod and get back to circling around the rink, doing small single jumps here and there to further ready their bodies for the next two to three hours of training.</p><p>Yuuri still hadn’t exactly gotten used to ice palace yet, but he did find a decent place to warm-up by the corner where the harnesses were leaned up against the wall. It reminded him of his own little warm-up corner in the rink in Detroit. The harnesses were leaning on the wall as if just disregarded after a rough jump training session.</p><p>Yuuri never liked the harness when he had been training for new jumps. He always found them restricting and tight on his body, it made him feel extra dizzy too. Though, he had to admit that most of the jumps he has now was because he had a harness at his old rink.</p><p>That doesn’t mean he likes hanging from the ropes though.</p><p>Speaking about jumps, it’s strange that Yuuri learned most of his more difficult jumps post-retirement. Most former competitive skaters would’ve just taken a break from the sport they had dedicated their life to for a few years and came back to coach or just went on with a different career after retiring. Not Yuuri though.</p><p>He loved the ice too much to cut off his ties so he came back to skating as a coach right after he was sure he had recovered, and even when he had crutches and was in too much pain to put his well-loved skates back on he was always at the rink helping as much as he can.</p><p>The ice was his life. Too much of his life to well and truly leave it.</p><p>He finishes up on his stretching and goes to put his skates on, taking the skates from their place in the suitcase he has been using since he started as a senior.</p><p>He removes his makkachin soft guards that he had commissioned what seems like so long ago and placed his signature red and white hard guards in their place. Hopping a few times as he stood up and walked towards the entrance.</p><p>It was jump and spins that they had to work on this session, which was kind of odd that Yakov chose him to be the jump coach since he wasn’t exactly the best at jumps when he had been competing.</p><p>He did have a fair amount of quads that kept him high on the rankings to edge out the competition. A toe loop, a Salchow, and his Lutz that he only really got to execute once in his competitive career. His artistry and interpretation was really what he had that kept him so high and on the podium at every competition. Plus, he collected the extra points from doing Tanos and Rippons.</p><p>He slips off his hard guards and placed them on the boards besides his phone, pushing himself away from the side lines. Yuuri starts to warm up with his students, skating around the ice and careful not to collide with any of his students to avoid any accidents.</p><p>Yuuri finishes up his warm up and stands to the side as his students start to do their more difficult elements.</p><p>Alexei starts to build up speed and enter into a toe loop in his peripheral vision, promptly falling as he landed on the wrong edge of his blade. Yuuri skated over to him and offered him a hand, which Alexei took.</p><p>“Here. Watch me, watch the speed, the edge, the take off. After that, try again. If you feel like you need a harness for assistance, tell me. Okay?” Yuuri softly smiles at the boy and skated into an open space. He took a deep breath and started to gain momentum. He shifted onto his left foot and to his right foot again and struck the ice with his left toe pick.</p><p>He landed on the ice as soon as he left the ice, smoothly landing with a smooth outside running edge. He came to a stop, leaving snow in his wake. “Your turn.”</p><p>Needless to say, it was a very hard session for all of the skaters.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“We picked out the music we want to use, Coach!” Katya and Igor walked up to where Yuuri stood by the table, reviewing his notes on the day. Two phones were slid on top of his clipboard, both displaying an album cover. “Big spender and jumpin’ jack? Four seasons: summer, that I’ve heard of before.” Yuuri chuckles as he flipped through Katya’s selections.</p><p>“I’ll give these a listen and see what I can whip up, but this big spender one looks like a remix. Where did you even find these?” Katya only smiles innocently. “that’s a secret.” Yuuri eyes her warily, squinting his eyes at the girl’s suspicious behavior.</p><p>He shakes it off, taking Igor’s selections into account next. “Let the good times roll and the tucker soundtrack. You sure picked some lively ones, huh.” Yuuri gave the two their phones back, closing his clipboard along with the action.</p><p>“Send me these when you get home, or drop by my apartment when I’m home. Though, I’m not sure if you live at the apartment building as well?” The siblings shake their heads. “Nope. We live close by though.”</p><p>“No, just send me the music later. No need for you to go to my place after a long day of practice.” Yuuri catches sight of familiar blond hair and the boy along with it, darting his gaze back to the siblings in front of him. “go on home then, it’s time for you to rest up. Don’t forget to ice those bruises.”</p><p>The two walk out of the rink, bantering in their usual playful tone. “Oi. What do you want.” </p><p>Yuuri raises his eyebrows at the teen, turning away from him and went to the rink entrance. He pushes himself from the boards, letting himself glide freely on the ice.</p><p>“From what I can remember, Mr. Plisetsky, I’m supposed to be the one to ask such a question. After all, wasn’t it you who cornered me earlier.” Yuri purses his lips into a fine line, eyes following his coach’s movements. Watching him like a hawk.</p><p>“Why’d you retire?” The young boy asks, leaning into the plastic of the borders. “You clearly skate well. Well enough to continue competing.” Well enough to take the world by storm. Not that you haven’t already when you WERE competing. The teen left unsaid.</p><p>“You saw me. Last night. Didn’t you?” Yuuri asks, not looking up from his skates and the indentations he left on the ice as he carved figures into them.</p><p>He had heard someone come out and slamming the door when he had finished his routine. He thought it was just the wind at first, but thought he was stupid for thinking that in the first place. There was no way wind could’ve gotten into a closed establishment.</p><p>“I didn’t think it was safe enou—“ The teen scowls and lets out an indistinct sound. “Bullshit. You perform better than anyone in the field right now. Even better than the old man.” The Japanese man finally looks up, red faced and flustered.</p><p>“I— I wouldn’t say I’m better than the competing athletes! That’s an insult to them and their training.” He sputters out. No way he could ever be better than Viktor. He tried to be better than him when he had been competing not so long ago.</p><p>“The only insult is how you think you’re too good to be competing with any of us. You deprived me of my chance to really prove that I am the best. I’ve been waiting since you stepped out into the international stage breaking each and every one of the old man’s junior records. Now the only thing I see is a coward.”</p><p>The teen turns around, fully intending to leave the rink. He didn’t want any of this. Having such a great skater turn into a coach because of the fear of his own failure. He didn’t need someone like that coaching him.</p><p>“Wait.” the tired and defeated tone of the Japanese coach’s voice sent Yuri whipping around faster than he has in his life. The man he idolized and looked up to from when he was a child was slumped on the boards of the rink, looking small and pathetic.</p><p>“you’re right. I am a coward. However, I do not think that I am too good to be competing with everyone else.” He says, raising his head to meet Yuri’s eyes who only raises his eyebrows. Yuuri sighs.</p><p>“Come here for a second.” Yuuri instructs, patting on a place of the barriers where he wants Yuri to go. The teen silently obliges, resting his forearms on the surface beside his coach who was on the other side of the boards.</p><p>“When I got injured, the very first thing I thought about was ‘this. This could be the end of my career.’” Yuuri bitterly laughs. “I felt awful. Getting injured in the middle of what was probably the most important performance in my life. I had the highest technical base value out of all the skaters, especially with the Lutz and the triple axel at the end of the program. I really thought I‘ve done it. I checked and I made sure my Lutz edge was correct, I made sure everything was alright with my performance.”</p><p>“The thing was that I knew I could bounce back again, yet I had been so scared. What if I reinjure myself? What if I could never skate again? What if, what if, what if. “He smiles softly. “I never wanted to not be allowed to pull on my skates, so I choice the safest option. To retire and let the others take the wheel.” He slowly pushes off the boards, creating small bubbles.</p><p>“I eventually got back to my former shape, I never gave up my competition training. I still did what I did when I was competitive, minus the actual competitions themselves. I learnt new jumps, tried new spins, new step sequences. Anything that made me feel free.”</p><p>This really only made Yuri feel even more frustrated. “So you kept up with everything and improved. Why wouldn’t you just compete?”</p><p>“look at it how I looked at it before. Would you rather continue to compete and risk reinjuring yourself or stop competing, lowering the risk, and be allowed to skate for as long as you want?” Yuri groans, straightening up when the coach faces him. “What I don’t get is why you decided to not compete when you were training with risk. Learning new quads new elements. Isn’t that the same risk?”</p><p>“well, I never got the point of coming back to the competitive scene. I was satisfied with coaching. I was satisfied with completing college on time. I could still go to competitions with the athletes I was coaching, so I could still see my friends. I was satisfied with helping other skaters, really. I was happy.”</p><p>“Were you, really?” Yuri asks, uncharacteristically timid. Surely someone who had competed for so long in his life. “Well, sure, once in a while I do miss competing. The thrill of it, the adrenaline spreading through your body. I’m not sure if I’ll ever stop missing it if I’m being totally honest.”</p><p>“Then why don’t you come back.” Yuuri exasperatingly sighs, going to lean on the boards. “you know I can’t, I’ve already retired.” Yuri snorts, crossing his arms. “And why not? Plenty of skaters come out of retirement to compete again.”</p><p>“Well I--“</p><p>Why didn’t Yuuri, actually.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It plagued Yuuri well into the night, even after he’s had his night tea, his shower, and even after he had set himself down on the fluffy bed to finally rest after a long day’s work.</p><p>It was true that skaters come out of retirement on certain occasions, but it’s usually due to a big event like the Olympics to find great glory to wonderfully end a wonderful and fruitful career. Some due to the fact that prior injuries that was thought to be impossible to come back from had miraculously healed. Though that was on the rarer cases.</p><p>In Yuuri’s case, that could well on be him, if he chooses to come back to competing. While his injuries were hard to come back from, it wasn’t impossible. Yuuri made a full recovery, as he even started doing even more difficult elements than the elements he had done while he had been competing.</p><p>It’s not like he could come back anytime soon. He had coaching contracts with the Russians for this season, not to mention the ones he already has in Detroit. It would be too difficult to juggle coaching and competing at the same time, and it’s not like he can just back out on a contract without any consequences.</p><p>Plus, he’d have to work up to where he used to stand. He’s have to attend regionals and he hasn’t competed there since he had been sixteen.</p><p>Ah, he’s overthinking it. At this point he isn’t gonna get some sleep if this keeps up.</p><p>He glances to the side where his alarm clock sat on his bedside table, 9:13 pm blinking in a dark colored font.</p><p>Going to the rink always calmed him down before, plus he could start working on the Junior’s programs as they already sent him their music selections hours earlier.</p><p>He had a key and Yakov already allowed him to go into the rink whenever he wants as long as he shoots him a text before he went to avoid any robbery scares.</p><p>The Japanese man sits up from his yet to be broken in mattress with a heavy sigh, pushing off his covers that protected him from the night cold, not that it mattered really, it was still cold as hell. He doubts there will be people in the rink aside from the cleaning staff probably, so he doesn’t put a lot of effort into his presentation.</p><p>He takes out a pair of black training pants with the matching Adidas training shirt along with his oldest team Japan jacket, which he normally wouldn’t wear but he had already run out of good training jackets that could protect him from the cold air when he jogs to the rink.</p><p>He slips them on, not bothering to smooth any wrinkles out before grabbing his gear bag and slipping on his running shoes. He hurries to the front door, intending to be back before midnight. He catches a sight of himself on the mirror outside his bedroom.</p><p>He looked a lot younger than usual. With his messy hair sticking out in all places and his wrinkles messy training clothes, he looked like how he looked when he rushed to the rink for training before Celestino cremates him three to four years before.</p><p>He doesn’t know what to make of that, really.</p><p>He shakes it off, walking out of the apartment, making sure to lock the door behind him before leaving. He takes notice of the unusual rowdiness of the area. The walls were surprisingly thin, so you could hear all sorts of things from the apartments lining the hall.</p><p>Yuuri inwardly smiles, at least the place wasn’t a total ghost town like he had first thought. He takes the stairs instead of the elevator, might as well if he’s trying to wear himself out. It was a long journey, given it was seven floors down.</p><p>The jog to the arena was relatively uneventful. The streets were pretty much empty aside from the few people on late night walks by themselves or with their pooches, Yuuri definitely got his daily dose of serotonin when he had pet at least three puppies. (All dogs are puppies. You are a heartless person if you think otherwise.)</p><p>Yuuri comes to a stop when he arrives at the entrance to the sports palace, checking his phone for the fifth time if he had sent Yakov a message. He had, but he just wanted to avoid any kind of theft scare.</p><p>He enters the arena quietly, locking the front doors behind him to be safe. On the contrary to what he had believed earlier, it seemed that the arena was completely empty. There was no noise anywhere in the huge space. The cleaning staff must’ve finished their shift earlier in the night.</p><p>The Japanese man decides to use the rink closest to the entrance, which was the NHL sized rink. He hoped and prayed that the ice had been leveled out and conditioned after the Hockey players used the rink. They tend to ruin the ice’s surface texture.</p><p>Then again, if the ice wasn’t to his liking, he could always just move to the Olympic sized rink where the figure skaters usually train.</p><p>The opens the doors and flicks on the lights, the dark room brightening up immediately. He gets closer to the boards, silently yelling a triumphant yes as he looks over the ice’s surface. It didn’t look to be in awful shape, which is saying a lot since the ice didn’t really look like it had been conditioned hours before.</p><p>He smiles, going to do his warm up before going on the very familiar surface. He does the usual warm up, stretches, ankle strengthening, etc. before he goes to put on his well-worn skates.</p><p>He glides onto the ice, sighing as the consistency of the surface beneath him was comfortable. He does a few laps, adjusting to the smaller size of the rink before going to a stop by where he had placed his phone.</p><p>He scrolls though his files to find the music the siblings had sent him earlier picking Katya’s chosen SP music first.</p><p>The piece sounded fun. It sure did seem like something Katya would choose, Yuuri thought as the music went on the instrumental part.</p><p>He already had a few ideas in mind. And since junior ladies short didn’t allow a lone triple axel and quads, he could work on the timing of each element better.</p><p>He listens to the song a few more times and writing down ideas for jumps and spins and sequences before connecting his phone to a speaker and skating to the middle of the rink.</p><p>He starts off the program with a bit of cheekiness, rolling his shoulder and posing bot of his arms behind and in front of her on the small <em>ting.</em> Crossing his arms with each hand of the opposite shoulder going into a V framing her face and into a small dramatic gasp motion.</p><p>He does a flying sit spin into right into the program, the type of sit spin that Katya always likes to do. Getting out of the spin with a high kick right after, adding small bits of arm movements into it. He does a few twizzles as a transition into a camel spin into a sit spin into an I spin. Adding a small cheeky face framing movement.</p><p>He does a leveled down step sequence, which he will refine later on. Finally going into the second part where he placed all of the jumps. Katya had good enough stamina to handle it from what Yuuri had observed.</p><p>He quickly launches into a triple flip triple loop combo as the music builds up doing a high kick to transition out of the jump. He goes into a small cantilever, not as gravity defying as Katya’s but it was what he could manage. Doing a triple Lutz as he comes out of the cantilever.</p><p>He goes into a small choreographic sequence as the music shifts from big spender to jumpin’ jacks doing the required double axel before going into a layback spin into a beillmann. Going into the ending pose with both arms extended and crossed by the wrists.</p><p>Yuuri pants, wiping off the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. Great, now he had an idea on what the program was to look like. He had recorded himself so he wouldn’t forget anything. There were three jumping passes with one combination. The could change one of the lone jumps into a combination or a jump with higher difficulty as the season goes on.</p><p>That is if Katya actually likes the program. </p><p>Yuuri shrugs it off. He could always think of another program if Katya doesn’t approve. Though this choreography is very Daniil Gleikhengauz now that Yuuri looks back at the choreography, He doesn’t know if Katya likes that.</p><p>He skates towards where his phone sat connected to the speaker. Which one to do next? Katya’s LP or Igor’s Short? He scrolls down and taps on Katya’s LP music. Might as well get all of it over and done with, he’ll do the refining later on.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Yuuri pants, tired after finishing three more rough drafts of the Junior’s programs for the season. Yuuri had very carefully placed each element into the programs to where the skater’s ability would allow them to perform them. He had also carefully thought of where they would place their more difficult elements for when they get a higher success rate on them.</p><p>“I didn’t realize someone else was here.” A deep voice rung across the large space of the rink, speaking in deeply accented English. Yuuri looks up, eyes meeting the other person’s aqua blue eyes. “V-viktor! I— What are you doing here so late?” Yuuri asks, still slightly out of breath.</p><p>“I should be asking you the same thing. Why are you here so late, Coach Yuuri?” Viktor adds a teasing lilt saying his name with the title. The other man chuckles. “Choreographing. The Junior season is coming up after all, I had to start somewhere and give the choreography to the siblings so they could get used to it before the start of the season.”</p><p>Viktor hums, smiling a bit as he runs his eyes on Yuuri’s slightly disheveled state. “Do you need any help? A second opinion, maybe?” Yuuri smiles widely, insight from Viktor is great! He is a wonderful choreographer after all. His choreography is what got Yuuri into choreographing in the first place.  “That would be great, thanks! Though maybe in a bit. I’m still a bit tired.”</p><p>Viktor nods and heads over to the seats to put on his skates. “Would you mind if I skated with you? I came here to blow off some steam since I couldn’t sleep, though it’s a bonus that I got to see you here as well.” He winks at Yuuri who blushes. “Sure. I came here to do the same actually.”</p><p>“Oh? What’s on your mind?” He asks as he goes to enter the ice.</p><p>Yuuri goes to open his mouth, but closes it immediately. Well, it’s not like he can just dump all of his existential crisis to Viktor. “Ah, nothing big really. I’m just having a bit of trouble adjusting to the new environment.” Yuuri gives him a small unsure smile as Viktor skates up to him.</p><p>“You could always come to me for help if there’s any trouble. I meant it when I said I wanted to get to know you Yuuri. You just have to tell me what you want me to be to you. A brother? A friend? A mentor? A student? A lover?” Viktor takes a hold of his hands.</p><p>And for a moment, Yuuri thinks in his head. <em>A lover might be nice</em>.</p><p>Nope, no. Yuuri didn’t think that at all.</p><p>“Honestly, you just have to be yourself. Just be Viktor. You don’t have to put up a front for me.” Yuuri meets his eyes, bringing the sides of his lips slightly upwards in a small tired smile. “Just be Viktor?” the coach nods, tilting his head a bit to the side. “Just be Viktor.”</p><p>The Russian only nods, skating back a bit to give them both a little bit of space for him to offer his arm. “Well, if I can just be Viktor, then you can just be Yuuri. You don’t have to put a front for me either. We can just be us when it’s just us. No living legend, no Japan’s ace, no Russia’s pride, no Japan’s ice prince. Just Viktor and Yuuri.” Viktor throws him a wide smile. “Would you do me the honor of skating alongside me, Just Yuuri?”</p><p>Yuuri looks at him incredulously. Who knew his long time idol could be such a dork? Not that it’s a bad thing, of course.</p><p>Yuuri could feel the sense of Viktor being so far out of reach crumbling as he stares at the arm being offered. He smiles widely in return. “Of course, I would be honored.” He loops his arm around the other man’s, the two of them laughing as they fail to skate in unison the first time.</p><p>That night when Yuuri came home, he said goodnight to Viktor who lived in the apartment beside him. He washed up and laid his head on his pillow, out like a light immediately.</p><p>That night he slept the most peacefully he had ever slept since before he moved from Japan, dreaming of clouds, blue orbs and shiny silver hair.</p><p> </p>
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  <strong>CELESTINO CIALDINI ON THE KATSUKI TRANSFER: I DO NOT HAVE ANYTHING AGAINST MY FORMER STUDENT. HE IS AN ADULT AND CAN MAKE HIS OWN DESCISIONS ON WHAT HE THINKS IS THE BEST FOR HIMSELF.</strong>
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  <strong>By Holly Merewood</strong>
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  <strong>Earlier today the former coach of Yuuri Katsuki, Celestino Cialdini finally commented about the situation. “I have nothing against my former student. He is an adult and can make his own decisions on what he thinks is the best for himself and his career. I fully support him no matter what. If it is drama you are looking for, it is not here, for we are a close knitted family in our rink and Yuuri leaving doesn’t change the fact that he is family.” </strong>
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  <strong>Such a sweet coach and such a wonderful bond between the team! It looks as though there is nothing but love and support that the Coach has towards his former top skater. </strong>
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  <strong>Tell us your thoughts on JPsports!</strong>
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  <p><strong>Isabella </strong>@flutzedges</p>
  <p>I call bullshit. No one leaves their coach that peacefully.</p>
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  <p><strong>Ari </strong>@skategeek</p>
  <p>Lol, I was expecting that Yuuri transferred to Team Feltsman to come back to comp but lol</p>
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  <p><strong>DetroitSk8erz </strong>@hamstersindetroit</p>
  <p>I’m glad that their still on good terms! It would’ve broken my heart if they stopped their relationship :((</p>
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  <p><strong>Phichitey</strong> @icetea</p>
  <p>Phew! The whole thing almost gave me a heart attack! Imagine Yuuri just not even being a part of the DSC</p>
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  <p><strong>Kai </strong>@Katsudone</p>
  <p>@icetea NOOO DON'T EVEN TALK ABOUT THAT</p>
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  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I am so sorry it took me three months to update. I lost all my files cause my laptop broke and had to rewrite the entire chapter, plus the fact that i'm a full time student. I'll try to have a better update schedule, but i'm just gonna update when I don't have major writers block and when I feel like it. </p><p>Also, I'm basing off Katya on Sasha Trusova before she landed her quads in competition and Igor on Yuma Kagiyama until I find a better skater to base him off of. (No hate on Yuma, I just don't think he's the best fit for Igor's character. I love him to death, he's absolutely precious) </p><p>BUT LIKE DOES ANYONE FOLLOW FIGURE SKATING? DID ANYONE SEE WORLDS? THAT WAS SUCH A STRESSFUL EXPERIENCE I THINK I DIED. </p><p>Thank you for reading this chapter! leave your thoughts!</p>
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